A cry of terror escaped her: she started back, shuddering, and caught hold of Nugent's arm. Grosse motioned sternly to him to turn her face from the window; and lifted the bandage. She clutched at it with feverish eagerness as he held it up. "Put it on again!" she said, holding by Nugent with one hand, and lifting the other to point towards Oscar with a gesture of disgust. "Put it on again. I have seen too much already."
Grosse fastened the bandage over her eyes, and waited a little. She still held Nugent's arm. The sting of my indignation as I saw it, roused me into doing something. I stepped forward to part them. Grosse stopped me. "No!" he said. "Don't make bad worse." I looked at Oscar for the second time. There he stood, as he had stood from the first moment when she appeared at the door--his eyes staring wildly straight before him; his limbs set and fixed. I went to him, and touched him. He seemed not to feel it. I spoke to him. I might as well have spoken to a man of stone.
Grosse's voice drew my attention, for a moment, the other way.
"Come!" he said, trying to take Lucilla back into her own room.
She shook her head, and tightened her hold on Nugent's arm.
"_You_ take me," she whispered. "As far as the door."
I again attempted to stop it; and again the German put me back.
"Not to-day!" he said sternly. With that, he made a sign to Nugent, and placed himself on Lucilla's other side. In silence, the two men led her out of the room. The door closed on them. It was over.
A FAINT sound of crying found its way to my ears from the lower end of the room, and reminded me that the rector and his wife had been present among us. Feeble Mrs. Finch was lying back in her chair, weeping and wailing over what had happened. Her husband, with the baby in his arms, was trying to compose her. I ought perhaps to have offered my help--but, I own, poor Mrs. Finch's distress produced only a passing impression on me. My whole heart was with another person. I forgot the rector and his wife, and went back to Oscar.
This time he moved--he lifted his head when he saw me. Shall I ever forget the silent misery in that face, the dull dreadful stare in those tearless eyes?
I took his hand--I felt for the poor disfigured, rejected man as his mother might have felt for him--I gave him a mother's kiss. "Be comforted, Oscar," I said. "Trust me to set this right."