She has not answered the letter I wrote to her. (I begin to wish I had never written it, or at least some of it--the latter part I mean.) I have heard absolutely nothing of her since she has been abroad. I don't know when she will return--or if she will ever return, to live at Dimchurch again. Oh, what would I not give to have this dreadful mystery cleared up! to know whether I ought to fall down on my knees before her and beg her pardon? or whether I ought to count among the saddest days of my life the day which brought that woman to live with me as companion and friend?
Have I acted rashly? or have I acted wisely?
There is the question which always comes to me and torments me, when I wake in the night. Let me look again (for the fiftieth time at least) at Oscar's letter.
[Note.--I copy the letter. Other eyes than hers ought to see it in this place. It is Nugent, of course, who here writes in Oscar's character and in Oscar's name. You will observe that his good resolutions, when he left me, held out as far as Paris--and then gave way as follows.--P.]
"MY OWN DEAREST,--I have reached Paris, and have found my first opportunity of writing to you since I left Browndown. Madame Pratolungo has no doubt told you that a sudden necessity has called me to my brother. I have not yet reached the place at which I am to meet him.
Before I meet him, let me tell you what the necessity which has parted us really is. Madame Pratolungo no longer possesses my confidence. When you have read on a little farther, she will no longer possess yours.
"Alas, my love, I must amaze you, shock you, grieve you--I who would lay down my life for your happiness! Let me write it in the fewest words. I have made a terrible discovery. Lucilla! you have trusted Madame Pratolungo as your friend. Trust her no longer. She is your enemy, and mine.
"I suspected her some time since. My worst suspicions have been confirmed.
"Long ere this, I ought to have told you, what I tell you now. But I shrink from distressing you. To see a sad look on your dear face breaks my heart. It is only when I am away from you--when I fear the consequences if you are not warned of your danger--that I can summon the courage to tear off the mask from that woman's false face, and show her to you as she really is. It is impossible for me to enter into details in the space of a letter; I reserve all particulars until we meet again, and until I can produce, what you have a right to ask for--proof that I am speaking the truth.
"In the meanwhile, I beg you to look back into your own thoughts, to recall your own words, on the day when Madame Pratolungo offended you in the rectory garden. On that occasion, the truth escaped the Frenchwoman's lips--and she knew it!
"Do you remember what you said, after she had followed you to Browndown?
I mean, after she had declared that you would have fallen in love with my brother if you had met him first--and after Nugent (at her instigation no doubt) had taken advantage of your blindness to make you believe that you were speaking to _me._ When you were smarting under the insult, and when you had found out the trick, what did you say?
"You said these--or nearly these--words:
" 'She hated you from the first, Oscar--she took up with your brother directly he came here. Don't marry me at Dimchurch! Find out some place that they don't know of! They are both in a conspiracy together against you and against me. Take care of them! take care of them!'
"Lucilla! I echo your own words to you. I return the warning--the prophetic warning--which you unconsciously gave me in that past time. I am afraid my unhappy brother loves you--and I know for certain that Madame Pratolungo feels the interest in _him_ which she has never felt in _me._ What you said, I say. They are in a conspiracy together against us.
Take care of them! take care of them!
