As no time is to be
lost, I start for London without waiting for your return from your walk
to wish you good-bye. You so thoroughly understand the necessity of
dispensing with formal farewells, in cases of emergency, that I am sure
you will not feel offended at my taking leave of you in this way. With
best wishes for your father's recovery, believe me,
"Yours very truly,
"LUCILLA.
"P. S.--You need be under no apprehension about me. Zillah goes with me
as far as London; and I shall communicate with Herr Grosse when I arrive
at my aunt's house."
But for one sentence in it, I should most assuredly have answered this
cruel letter by instantly resigning my situation as Lucilla's companion.
The sentence to which I refer, contained the words which cast in my teeth
the excuses that I had made for Oscar's absence. The sarcastic reference
to my recent connection with a case of emergency, and to my experience of
the necessity of dispensing with formal farewells, removed my last
lingering doubts of Nugent's treachery. I now felt, not suspicion only,
but positive conviction that he had communicated with her in his
brother's name, and that he had contrived (by some means at which it was
impossible for me to guess) so to work on Lucilla's mind--so to excite
that indwelling distrust which her blindness had rooted in her
character--as to destroy her confidence in me for the time being.
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