But what that something was, or what that inner motive might be, it baffled my utmost sagacity to guess.

Not the faintest idea of the terrible secret that he was hiding from me, crossed my mind.
Innocent of all suspicion of the truth, there I sat opposite to him, the unconscious witness of that unhappy man's final struggle to be true to the brother whom he loved, and to master the devouring passion that consumed him.

So long as Lucilla falsely believed him to be disfigured by the drug, so long the commonest consideration for her tranquillity would, in the estimation of others, excuse and explain his keeping out of her presence.

In that separation, lay his last chance of raising an insurmountable barrier between Lucilla and himself.

He had already tried uselessly to place another obstacle in the way--he had vainly attempted to hasten the marriage which would have made Lucilla sacred to him as his brother's wife.