True, he might now conscientiously approach the heiress, take her hand with an open countenance, and retain it.

Could he do so quite conscientiously?  The point of honour had been centred in his condition of beggary.  Something still was in his way.  A quick spring of his blood for air, motion, excitement, holiday freedom, sent his thoughts travelling whither they always shot away when his redoubtable natural temper broke loose.

In the case of any other woman than Cecilia Halkett he would not have been obstructed by the minor consideration as to whether he was wholly heart-free to ask her in marriage that instant; for there was no hindrance, and she was beautiful.  She was exceedingly beautiful; and she was an unequalled heiress.  She would be able with her wealth to float his newspaper, the dawn, so desired of Dr. Shrapnel!—­the best restorative that could be applied to him!  Every temptation came supplicating him to take the step which indeed he wished for:  one feeling opposed.  He really respected Cecilia:  it is not too much to say that he worshipped her with the devout worship rendered to the ideal Englishwoman by the heart of the nation.  For him she was purity, charity, the keeper of the keys of whatsoever is held precious by men; she was a midway saint, a light between day and darkness, in whom the spirit in the flesh shone like the growing star amid thin sanguine colour, the sweeter, the brighter, the more translucent the longer known.  And if the image will allow it, the nearer down to him the holier she seemed.

How offer himself when he was not perfectly certain that he was worthy of her?

Some jugglery was played by the adept male heart in these later hesitations.  Up to the extent of his knowledge of himself, the man was fairly sincere.  Passion would have sped him to Cecilia, but passion is not invariably love; and we know what it can be.

The glance he cast over the water at Normandy was withdrawn.  He went to Bevisham to consult with Dr. Shrapnel about the starting of a weekly journal, instead of a daily, and a name for it—­a serious question:  for though it is oftener weekly than daily that the dawn is visible in England, titles must not invite the public jest; and the glorious project of the daily dawn was prudently abandoned for by-and-by.  He thought himself rich enough to put a Radical champion weekly in the field and this matter, excepting the title, was arranged in Bevisham.  Thence he proceeded to Holdesbury, where he heard that the house, grounds, and farm were let to a tenant preparing to enter.  Indifferent to the blow, he kept an engagement to deliver a speech at the great manufacturing town of Gunningham, and then went to London, visiting his uncle’s town-house for recent letters.  Not one was from Renee:  she had not written for six weeks, not once for his thrice!  A letter from Cecil Baskelett informed him that ‘my lord’ had placed the town-house at his disposal.  Returning to dress for dinner on a thick and murky evening of February, Beauchamp encountered his cousin on the steps.  He said to Cecil, ’I sleep here to-night:  I leave the house to you tomorrow.’