rise and snap at such provocation.  He was even more emphatic when they next met.  He would not listen to a remonstrance; and though, of course, her love of him granted him the liberty to speak to her in what tone he pleased, there were sensations proper to her new rank which his intemperateness wounded and tempted to revolt when he vexed her with unreason.  She had a glimpse of the face he might wear to his enemies.

He was quite as resolute, too, about that slight matter of the Jersey bull.  He had the bull in Bevisham, and would not give him up without the sign manual of Lord Romfrey to an agreement to resign him over to the American Quaker gentleman, after a certain term.  Moreover, not once had he, by exclamation or innuendo, during the period of his recent grief for the loss of his first love, complained of his uncle Everard’s refusal in the old days to aid him in suing for Renee.  Rosamund had expected that he would.  She thought it unloverlike in him not to stir the past, and to bow to intolerable facts.  This idea of him, coming in conjunction with his present behaviour, convinced her that there existed a contradiction in his nature:  whence it ensued that she lost her warmth as an advocate designing to intercede for him with Cecilia; and warmth being gone, the power of the scandal seemed to her unassailable.  How she could ever have presumed to combat it, was an astonishment to her.  Cecilia might be indulgent, she might have faith in Nevil.  Little else could be hoped for.

The occupations, duties, and ceremonies of her new position contributed to the lassitude into which Rosamund sank.  And she soon had a communication to make to her lord, the nature of which was more startling to herself, even tragic.  The bondwoman is a free woman compared with the wife.

Lord Romfrey’s friends noticed a glow of hearty health in the splendid old man, and a prouder animation of eye and stature; and it was agreed that matrimony suited him well.  Luckily for Cecil he did not sulk very long.  A spectator of the earl’s first introduction to the House of Peers, he called on his uncle the following day, and Rosamund accepted his homage in her husband’s presence.  He vowed that my lord was the noblest figure in the whole assembly; that it had been to him the most moving sight he had ever witnessed; that Nevil should have been there to see it and experience what he had felt; it would have done old Nevil incalculable good! and as far as his grief at the idea and some reticence would let him venture, he sighed to think of the last Earl of Romfrey having been seen by him taking the seat of his fathers.

Lord Romfrey shouted ‘Ha!’ like a checked peal of laughter, and glanced at his wife.

CHAPTER XLV

A LITTLE PLOT AGAINST CECILIA