Do you thoroughly understand that I am, in no sense of the word, to blame--?"
"Thoroughly," I interposed. "Of course, they would not have gone to Browndown, if you had consented to let Nugent Dubourg into the house."
"Stop!" said Mr. Finch, elevating his right hand. "My good creature, you are in a state of hysterical precipitation. I will be heard! I did more than refuse my consent. When the man Grosse--I insist on your composing yourself--when the man Grosse came and spoke to me about it, I did more, I say, infinitely more, than refuse my consent. You know my force of language--don't be alarmed! I said, 'Sir! As pastor and parent, My Foot is down'----"
"I understand, Mr. Finch. Whatever you said to Herr Grosse was quite useless; he entirely ignored your personal point of view."
"Madame Pratolungo----!"
"He found Lucilla dangerously agitated by her separation from Oscar: he asserted, what he calls, his professional freedom of action."
"Madame Pratolungo----!"
"You persisted in closing your doors to Nugent Dubourg. He persisted, on his side--and took Lucilla to Browndown."
Mr. Finch got on his feet, and asserted himself at the full pitch of his tremendous voice.
"Silence!" he shouted, with a smack of his open hand on the table at his side.
I didn't care. I shouted. I came down, with a smack of my hand, on the opposite side of the table.
"One question, sir, before I leave you," I said. "Since your daughter went to Browndown, you have had many hours at your disposal. Have you seen Mr. Nugent Dubourg?"
The Pope of Dimchurch suddenly collapsed, in full fulmination of his domestic Bulls.
"Pardon me," he replied, adopting his most elaborately polite manner. "This requires considerable explanation."
I declined to wait for considerable explanation. "You have not seen him?" I said.
"I have not seen him," echoed Mr. Finch. "My position towards Nugent Dubourg is very remarkable, Madame Pratolungo. In my parental character, I should like to wring his neck. In my clerical character, I feel it incumbent on me to pause--and write to him. You feel the responsibility? You understand the distinction?"
I understood that he was afraid. Answering him by an inclination of the head (I hate a coward!) I walked silently to the door.
Mr. Finch returned my bow with a look of helpless perplexity. "Are you going to leave me?" he inquired blandly.
"I am going to Browndown."
If I had said that I was going to a place which the rector had frequent occasion to mention in the stronger passages of his sermons, Mr. Finch's face could hardly have shown more astonishment and alarm than it exhibited when I replied to him in those terms. He lifted his persuasive right hand; he opened his eloquent lips. Before the coming overflow of language could reach me, I was out of the room, on my way to Browndown.
CHAPTER THE THIRTY-EIGHTH
Is there no Excuse for Him?
OSCAR'S dismissed servant (left, during the usual month of warning, to take care of the house) opened the door to me when I knocked. Although the hour was already a late one in primitive Dimchurch, the man showed no signs of surprise at seeing me.
"Is Mr. Nugent Dubourg at home?"
"Yes, ma'am." He lowered his voice, and added, "I think Mr. Nugent expected to see you to-night."
Whether he intended it, or not, the servant had done me a good turn--he had put me on my guard. Nugent Dubourg understood my character better than I had understood his. He had foreseen what would happen, when I heard of Lucilla's visit on my return to the rectory--and he had, no doubt, prepared himself accordingly. I was conscious of a certain nervous trembling (I own) as I followed the servant to the sitting-room. At the moment, however, when he opened the door, this ignoble sensation left me as suddenly as it had come. I felt myself Pratolungo's widow again, when I entered the room.
A reading-lamp, with its shade down, was the only light on the table. Nugent Dubourg, comfortably reposing in an easychair, sat by the lamp, with a cigar in his mouth, and a book in his hand. He put down the book on the table as he rose to receive me. Knowing, by this time, what sort of man I had to deal with, I was determined not to let even the merest trifles escape me. It might have its use in helping me to understand him, if I knew how he had been occupying his mind while he was expecting me to arrive. I looked at the book. It was Rousseau's Confessions.
He advanced with his pleasant smile, and offered his hand as if nothing had happened to disturb our ordinary relations towards each other. I drew back a step, and looked at him.
"Won't you shake hands with me?" he asked.
"I will answer that directly," I said. "Where is your brother?"
"I don't know."
"When you do know, Mr. Nugent Dubourg, and when you have brought your brother back to this house, I will take your hand--not before."
He bowed resignedly, with a little satirical shrug of the shoulders, and asked if he might offer me a chair.
I took a chair for myself, and placed it so that I might be opposite to him when he resumed his seat. He checked himself in the act of sitting down, and looked towards the open window.
"Shall I throw away my cigar?" he said.
"Not on my account. I have no objection to smoking."
"Thank you." He took his chair--keeping his face in the partial obscurity cast by the shade of the lamp. After smoking for a moment, he spoke again, without turning to look at me. "May I ask what your object is in honoring me with this visit?"
"I have two objects. The first is to see that you leave Dimchurch to-morrow morning. The second is to make you restore your brother to his promised wife."
He looked round at me quickly. His experience of my irritable temper had not prepared him for the perfect composure of voice and manner with which I answered his question. He looked back again from me to his cigar, and knocked off the ash at the tip of it (considering with himself) before he addressed his next words to me.
"We will come to the question of my leaving Dimchurch presently," he said. "Have you received a letter from Oscar?"
"Yes."
"Have you read it?"
"I have read it."
"Then you know that we understand each other?"
"I know that your brother has sacrificed himself--and that you have taken a base advantage of the sacrifice."
He started, and looked round at me once more. I saw that something in my language, or in my tone of speaking, had stung him.
"You have your privilege as a lady," he said. "Don't push it too far. What Oscar has done, he has done of his own free will."
"What Oscar has done," I rejoined, "is lamentably foolish, cruelly wrong. Still, perverted as it is, there is something generous, something noble, in the motive which has led him. As for your conduct in this matter, I see nothing but what is mean, nothing but what is cowardly, in the motive which has led you."
He started to his feet, and flung his cigar into the empty fireplace.
"Madame Pratolungo," he said, "I have not the honor of knowing anything of your family.