MR. BLACKBURN TUCKHAM

Some time after Beauchamp had been seen renewing his canvass in Bevisham a report reached Mount Laurels that he was lame of a leg.  The wits of the opposite camp revived the French marquees, but it was generally acknowledged that he had come back without the lady:  she was invisible.  Cecilia Halkett rode home with her father on a dusky Autumn evening, and found the card of Commander Beauchamp awaiting her.  He might have stayed to see her, she thought.  Ladies are not customarily so very late in returning from a ride on chill evenings of Autumn.  Only a quarter of an hour was between his visit and her return.  The shortness of the interval made it appear the deeper gulf.  She noticed that her father particularly inquired of the man-servant whether Captain Beauchamp limped.  It seemed a piece of kindly anxiety on his part.  The captain was mounted, the man said.  Cecilia was conscious of rumours being abroad relating to Nevil’s expedition to France; but he had enemies, and was at war with them, and she held herself indifferent to tattle.  This card bearing his name, recently in his hand, was much more insidious and precise.  She took it to her room to look at it.  Nothing but his name and naval title was inscribed; no pencilled line; she had not expected to discover one.  The simple card was her dark light, as a handkerchief, a flower, a knot of riband, has been for men luridly illuminated by such small sparks to fling their beams on shadows and read the monstrous things for truths.  Her purer virgin blood was, not inflamed.  She read the signification of the card sadly as she did clearly.  What she could not so distinctly imagine was, how he could reconcile the devotion to his country, which he had taught her to put her faith in, with his unhappy subjection to Madame de Rouaillout.  How could the nobler sentiment exist side by side with one that was lawless?  Or was the wildness characteristic of his political views proof of a nature inclining to disown moral ties?  She feared so; he did not speak of the clergy respectfully.  Reading in the dark, she was forced to rely on her social instincts, and she distrusted her personal feelings as much as she could, for she wished to know the truth of him; anything, pain and heartrending, rather than the shutting of the eyes in an unworthy abandonment to mere emotion and fascination.  Cecilia’s love could not be otherwise given to a man, however near she might be drawn to love—­though she should suffer the pangs of love cruelly.