Oscar has everything to dread from this morbid fancy of hers as long as she is blind.

Only let her eyes correct her fancy--only let her see him as we see him, and get used to him, as we have got used to him; and Oscar's future with her is safe.

Will you leave things as they are for the present, on the chance that the German surgeon may get here before the wedding-day ?" I consented to that; being influenced, in spite of myself, by the remarkable coincidence between what Nugent had just said of Lucilla, and what Lucilla had said to me of herself earlier in the day.

It was impossible to deny that Nugent's theory, wild as it sounded, found its confirmation, so far, in Lucilla's view of her own case.

Having settled the difference between us in this way, for the time being, I shifted our talk next to the difficult question of Nugent's relations towards Lucilla.