For, remark, there was one terrible possibility threatening him in the future--the possibility of Lucilla's marriage! Such was the strange domestic position of this interesting creature, at the time when I entered the house.
You will now understand how completely puzzled I was when I recalled what had happened on the evening of my arrival, and when I asked myself--in the matter of the mysterious stranger--what course I was to take next.

I had found Lucilla a solitary being--helplessly dependent in her blindness on others--and, in that sad condition, without a mother, without a sister, without a friend even in whose sympathies she could take refuge, in whose advice she could trust.

I had produced a first favorable impression on her; I had won her liking at once, as she had won mine.

I had accompanied her on an evening walk, innocent of all suspicion of what was going on in her mind.

I had by pure accident enabled a stranger to intensify the imaginary interest which she felt in him, by provoking him to speak in her hearing for the first time.