"DEAREST FRIEND AND SISTER,--I cannot wait until we meet, to tell you my good news. The Brighton doctor has been dismissed; and a doctor from London has been tried instead. My dear! for intellect there is nothing like London. The new man sees, thinks, and makes up his mind on the spot.
He has a way of his own of treating Oscar's case; and he answers for curing him of the horrible fits. There is news for you! Come back, and let us jump for joy together. How wrong I was to doubt the future! Never, never, never will I doubt it again. This is the longest letter I have ever written.
"Your affectionate, "LUCILLA."
To this, a postscript was added, in Oscar's handwriting, as follows:--"Lucilla has told you that there is some hope for me at last. What I write in this place is written without her knowledge--for your private ear only. Take the first opportunity you can find of coming to see me at Browndown, without allowing Lucilla to hear of it. I have a great favor to ask of you. My happiness depends on your granting it. You shall know what it is, when we meet.
"OSCAR."
This postscript puzzled me.
It was not in harmony with the implicit confidence which I had observed Oscar to place habitually in Lucilla. It jarred on my experience of his character, which presented him to me as the reverse of a reserved secretive man. His concealment of his identity, when he first came among us, had been a forced concealment--due entirely to his horror of being identified with the hero of the trial. In all the ordinary relations of life, he was open and unreserved to a fault. That he could have a secret to keep from Lucilla, and to confide to me, was something perfectly unintelligible to my mind. It highly excited my curiosity; it gave me a new reason for longing to get back.
I was able to make all my arrangements, and to bid adieu to my father and my sisters on the evening of the twenty-third. Early on the morning of the twenty-fourth, I left Paris, and reached Dimchurch in time for the final festivities in celebration of Christmas Eve.
The first hour of Christmas Day had struck on the clock in our own pretty sitting-room, before I could prevail upon Lucilla to let me rest, after my journey, in bed. She was now once more the joyous light-hearted creature of our happier time; and she had so much to say to me, that not even her father himself (on this occasion) could have talked her down.
The next morning she paid the penalty of exciting herself over-night.
When I went into her room, she was suffering from a nervous head-ache, and was not able to rise at her usual hour. She proposed of her own accord that I should go alone to Browndown to see Oscar on my return. It is only doing common justice to myself to say that this was a relief to me. If she had had the use of her eyes, my conscience would have been easy enough--but I shrank from deceiving my dear blind girl, even in the slightest things.
So, with Lucilla's knowledge and approval, I went to Oscar alone.
I found him fretful and anxious--ready to flame out into one of his sudden passions, on the smallest provocation. Not the slightest reflection of Lucilla's recovered cheerfulness appeared in Lucilla's lover.
"Has she said anything to you about the new doctor?" were the first words he addressed to me.
"She has told me that she feels the greatest faith in him," I answered.
"She firmly believes that he speaks the truth in saying he can cure you."
"Did she show any curiosity to know _how_ he is curing me?"
"Not the slightest curiosity that I could see. It is enough for her that you _are_ to be cured. The rest she leaves to the doctor."
My last answer appeared to relieve him. He sighed, and leaned back in his chair. "That's right!" he said to himself. "I'm glad to hear that."
"Is the doctor's treatment of you a secret?" I asked.
"It must be a secret from Lucilla," he said, speaking very earnestly. "If she attempts to find it out, she must be kept--for the present, at least--from all knowledge of it. Nobody has any influence over her but you. I look to you to help me."
"Is this the favor you had to ask me?"
"Yes."
"Am I to know the secret of the medical treatment?"
"Certainly! How can I expect you to help me unless you know what a serious reason there is for keeping Lucilla in the dark."
He laid a strong emphasis on the two words "serious reason. I began to feel a little uneasy. I had never yet taken the slightest advantage of my poor Lucilla's blindness. And here was her promised husband--of all the people in the world--proposing to me to keep her in the dark.
"Is the new doctor's treatment dangerous?" I inquired.
"Not in the least."
"Is it not so certain as he has led Lucilla to believe?"
"It is quite certain.
"Did the other doctors know of it?"
"Yes."
"Why did they not try it?"
"They were afraid."
"Afraid? What _is_ the treatment?"
"Medicine."
"Many medicines? or one?"
"Only one."
"What is the name of it?"
"Nitrate of Silver."
I started to my feet, looked at him, and dropped back into my chair.
My mind reverted, the instant I recovered myself, to the effect produced on me when the blue man in Paris first entered my presence. In informing me of the effect of the medicine, he had (you will remember) concealed from me the malady for which he had taken it. It had been left to Oscar, of all the people in the world, to enlighten me--and that by a reference to his own case! I was so shocked that I sat speechless.
With his quick sensibilities, there was no need for me to express myself in words. My face revealed to him what was passing in my mind.
"You have seen a person who has taken Nitrate of Silver!" he exclaimed.
"Have _you?_" I asked.
"I know the price I pay for being cured," he answered quietly.
His composure staggered me. "How long have you been taking this horrible drug?" I inquired.
"A little more than a week."
"I see no change in you yet."
"The doctor tells me there will be no visible change for weeks and weeks to come."
Those words roused a momentary hope in me. "There is time to alter your mind," I said. "For heaven's sake reconsider your resolution before it is too late!"