He recalled to me in the strangest manner my past
experience of him, when he had first trusted me with the story of the
Trial, and when he had told me that Nugent was the good angel of his
life.
He went up to the place at which his brother was standing. In the simple,
boyish way, so familiar to me in the bygone time, he laid his hand on his
brother's arm.
"Nugent!" he said. "Are you the same dear good brother who saved me from
dying on the scaffold, and who cheered my hard life afterwards? Are you
the same bright, clever, noble fellow that I was always so fond of, and
so proud of?"
He paused, and removed his brother's hat. With careful, caressing hand,
he parted his brother's ruffled hair over the forehead. Nugent's head
sank lower. His face was distorted, his hands were clenched, in the dumb
agony of remembrance which that tender voice and that kind hand had set
loose in him. Oscar gave him time to recover himself: Oscar spoke next to
me.
"You know Nugent," he said. "You remember when we first met, my telling
you that Nugent was an angel? You saw for yourself, when he came to
Dimchurch, how kindly he helped me; how faithfully he kept my secrets;
what a true friend he was. Look at him--and you will feel, as I do, that
we have misunderstood and misinterpreted him, in some monstrous way." He
turned again to Nugent. "I daren't tell you," he went on, "what I have
heard about you, and what I have believed about you, and what vile
unbrotherly thoughts I have had of being revenged on you.
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