However, now let Cecilia understand that we English, calling ourselves free, are under morally lawless rule.  Government is what we require, and our means of getting it must be through universal suffrage.  At present we have no Government; only shifting Party Ministries, which are the tools of divers interests, wealthy factions, to the sacrifice of the Commonwealth.

She listened, like Rosamund Culling overborne by Dr. Shrapnel, inwardly praying that she might discover a man to reply to him.

‘A Despotism, Nevil?’

He hoped not, declined the despot, was English enough to stand against the best of men in that character; but he cast it on Tory, Whig, and Liberal, otherwise the Constitutionalists, if we were to come upon the despot.

’They see we are close on universal suffrage; they’ve been bidding each in turn for “the people,” and that has brought them to it, and now they’re alarmed, and accuse one another of treason to the Constitution, and they don’t accept the situation:  and there’s a fear, that to carry on their present system, they will be thwarting the people or corrupting them:  and in that case we shall have our despot in some shape or other, and we shall suffer.’

‘Nevil,’ said Cecilia, ‘I am out of my depth.’

‘I’ll support you; I can swim for two,’ said he.

’You are very self-confident, but I find I am not fit for battle; at least not in the front ranks.’

’Nerve me, then:  will you?  Try to comprehend once for all what the battle is.’

’I am afraid I am too indifferent; I am too luxurious.  That reminds me:  you want to meet your uncle Everard and if you will sleep at Mount Laurels to-night, the Esperanza shall take you to France to-morrow morning, and can wait to bring you back.’

As she spoke she perceived a flush mounting over Nevil’s face.  Soon it was communicated to hers.

The strange secret of the blood electrified them both, and revealed the burning undercurrent running between them from the hearts of each.  The light that showed how near they were to one another was kindled at the barrier dividing them.  It remained as good as a secret, unchallenged until they had separated, and after midnight Cecilia looked through her. chamber windows at the driving moon of a hurricane scud, and read clearly his honourable reluctance to be wafted over to his French love by her assistance; and Beauchamp on board the tossing steamboat perceived in her sympathetic reddening that she had divined him.

This auroral light eclipsed the other events of the day.  He drove into a town royally decorated, and still humming with the ravishment of the Tory entrance.  He sailed in the schooner to Mount Laurels, in the society of Captain Baskelett and his friends, who, finding him tamer than they expected, bantered him in the cheerfullest fashion.  He waited for his uncle Everard several hours at Mount Laurels, perused the junior Tory’s address to the Electors,