And still she asked herself between-whiles whether it could be true of an English lady of our day, that she, the fairest stature under sun, was ever knowingly twisted to this convulsion.  She seemed to look forth from a barred window on flower, and field, and hill.  Quietness existed as a vision.  Was it impossible to embrace it?  How pass into it?  By surrendering herself to the flames, like a soul unto death!  For why, if they were overpowering, attempt to resist them?  It flattered her to imagine that she had been resisting them in their present burning might ever since her lover stepped on the Esperanza’s deck at the mouth of Otley River.  How foolish, seeing that they are fatal!  A thrill of satisfaction swept her in reflecting that her ability to reason was thus active.  And she was instantly rewarded for surrendering; pain fled, to prove her reasoning good; the flames devoured her gently they cared not to torture so long as they had her to themselves.

At night, candle in hand, on the corridor, her father told her he had come across Grancey Lespel in Bevisham, and heard what he had not quite relished of the Countess of Romfrey.  The glittering of Cecilia’s eyes frightened him.  Taking her for the moment to know almost as much as he, the colonel doubted the weight his communication would have on her; he talked obscurely of a scandalous affair at Lord Romfrey’s house in town, and Beauchamp and that Frenchwoman.  ‘But,’ said he, ’Mrs. Grancey will be here to-morrow.’

‘So will Nevil, papa,’ said Cecilia.

‘Ah! he’s coming, yes; well!’ the colonel puffed.  ’Well, I shall see him, of course, but I . . .  I can only say that if his oath ’s worth having, I . . . and I think you too, my dear, if you . . . but it’s no use anticipating.  I shall stand out for your honour and happiness.  There, your cheeks are flushed.  Go and sleep.’

Some idle tale!  Cecilia murmured to herself a dozen times, undisturbed by the recurrence of it.  Nevil was coming to speak to her father tomorrow!  Adieu to doubt and division!  Happy to-morrow! and dear Mount Laurels!  The primroses were still fair in the woods:  and soon the cowslips would come, and the nightingale; she lay lapt in images of everything innocently pleasing to Nevil.  Soon the Esperanza would be spreading wings.  She revelled in a picture of the yacht on a tumbling Mediterranean Sea, meditating on the two specks near the tiller,—­who were blissful human creatures, blest by heaven and in themselves—­with luxurious Olympian benevolence.

For all that, she awoke, starting up in the first cold circle of twilight, her heart in violent action.  She had dreamed that the vessel was wrecked.  ‘I did not think myself so cowardly,’ she said aloud, pressing her side and then, with the dream in her eyes, she gasped:  ’It would be together!’

Strangely chilled, she tried to recover some fallen load.  The birds of the dawn twittered, chirped, dived aslant her window, fluttered back.  Instead of a fallen load, she fancied presently that it was an expectation she was desiring to realize:  but what?  What could be expected at that hour?  She quitted her bed, and paced up and down the room beneath a gold-starred ceiling.  Her expectation, she resolved to think, was of a splendid day of the young Spring at Mount Laurels—­a day to praise to Nevil.