If Grosse pronounced
Lucilla's recovery to be complete, before I returned from abroad, the
best thing I could do would be to put Miss Batchford in a position to
reveal the truth in my place--without running any risk of a premature
discovery. In other words, without letting the old lady into the secret,
before the time arrived at which it could be safely divulged.
This apparently intricate difficulty was easily overcome, by writing two
letters (before I went away) instead of one.
The first letter I addressed to Lucilla. Without any reference to her
behavior to me, I stated, in the fullest detail and with all needful
delicacy, her position between Oscar and Nugent: and referred her for
proof of the truth of my assertions to her relatives at the rectory. "I
leave it entirely to your discretion" (I added) "to write me an answer or
not. Put the warning which I now give you to the proof; and if you wonder
why it has been so long delayed, apply to Herr Grosse on whom the whole
responsibility rests." There I ended; being resolved, after the wrong
that Lucilla had inflicted on me, to leave my justification to facts. I
confess I was too deeply wounded by her conduct--though I _did_ lay all
the blame of it on Nugent--to care to say a word in my own defence.
This letter sealed, I wrote next to Lucilla's aunt.
It was not an easy matter to address Miss Batchford.
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