why." The thing was really inexplicable. He honestly admired her--one had only to notice him when he was looking at her to see it. He had not the faintest suspicion of her dislike for him--she carefully concealed it for Oscar's sake. He felt genuine sympathy for her in her affliction--his mad idea that her sight might yet be restored, was the natural offspring of a true feeling for her. He was not unfavorable to his brother's marriage--on the contrary, he ruffled the rector's dignity (he was always giving offense to Mr. Finch) by suggesting that the marriage might be hastened. I heard him say the words myself:--"The church is close by. Why can't you put on your surplice and make Oscar happy to-morrow, after breakfast?" More even than this, he showed the most vivid interest--like a woman's interest rather than a man's--in learning how the love-affair between Oscar and Lucilla had begun. I referred him, so far as Oscar was concerned, to his brother as the fountain-head of information. He did not decline to consult his brother. He did not own to me that he felt any difficulty in doing so. He simply dropped Oscar in silence; and asked about Lucilla. How had it begun on her side? I reminded him of his brother's romantic position at Dimchurch and told him to judge for himself of the effect it would produce on the excitable imagination of a young girl. He declined to judge for himself; he persisted in appealing to me. When I told the little love-story of the two young people, one event in it appeared to make a very strong impression on him. The effect produced on Lucilla (when she first heard it) by the sound of his brother's voice, dwelt strangely on his mind. He failed to understand it; he ridiculed it; he declined to believe it. I was obliged to remind him that Lucilla was blind, and that love which, in other cases, first finds its way to the heart through the eyes, could only, in her case, first find its way through the ears. My explanation, thus offered, had its effect: it set him thinking. "The sound of his voice!" he said to himself, still turning the problem over and over in his mind. "People say my voice is exactly like Oscar's," he added, suddenly addressing himself to me. "Do you think so too?" I answered that there could be no doubt of it. He got up from his chair, with a quick little shudder, like a man who feels a chill--and changed the subject. On the next occasion when he and Lucilla met--so far from being more familiar with her, he was more constrained than ever. As it had begun between these two, so it seemed likely to continue to the end. In my society, he was always at his ease. In Lucilla's society, never!
What was the obvious conclusion which a person with my experience ought to have drawn from all this?
I know well enough what it was, now. On my oath as an honest woman, I failed to see it at the time. We are not always (suffer me to remind you) consistent with
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