‘Nevil, how foolish!’

‘It’s my will.’

‘It is unreasonable.  You give your enemies licence.’

’I know what’s in your head.  Take my hand, and let me have your word for it.’

‘But if persons you like very much, Nevil, should hear?’

‘Promise.  You are a woman not to break your word.’

‘If I decline?’

‘Your hand!  I’ll kiss it.’

‘Oh! my darling.’  Rosamund flung her arms round him and strained him an instant to her bosom.  ’What have I but you in the world?  My comfort was the hope that I might serve you.’

’Yes! by slaying one woman as an offering to another.  It would be impossible for you to speak the truth.  Don’t you see, it would be a lie against her, and making a figure of me that a man would rather drop to the ground than have shown of him?  I was to blame, and only I. Madame de Rouaillout was as utterly deceived by me as ever a trusting woman by a brute.  I look at myself and hardly believe it ’s the same man.  I wrote to her that I was unchanged—­and I was entirely changed, another creature, anything Lord Romfrey may please to call me.’

‘But, Nevil, I repeat, if Miss Halkett should hear . . . ?’

‘She knows by this time.’

‘At present she is ignorant of it.’

‘And what is Miss Halkett to me?’

’More than you imagined in that struggle you underwent, I think, Nevil.  Oh! if only to save her from Captain Baskelett!  He gained your uncle’s consent when they were at the Castle, to support him in proposing for her.  He is persistent.  Women have been snared without loving.  She is a great heiress.  Reflect on his use of her wealth.  You respect her, if you have no warmer feeling.  Let me assure you that the husband of Cecilia, if he is of Romfrey blood, has the fairest chance of the estates.  That man will employ every weapon.  He will soon be here bowing to me to turn me to his purposes.’

‘Cecilia can see through Baskelett,’ said Beauchamp.

’Single-mindedly selfish men may be seen through and through, and still be dangerous, Nevil.  The supposition is, that we know the worst of them.  He carries a story to poison her mind.  She could resist it, if you and she were in full confidence together.  If she did not love you, she could resist it.  She does, and for some strange reason beyond my capacity to fathom, you have not come to an understanding.  Sanction my speaking to her, just to put her on her guard, privately:  not to injure that poor lady, but to explain.  Shall she not know the truth?  I need say but very little.  Indeed, all I can say is, that finding the marquise in London one evening, you telegraphed for me to attend on her, and I joined you.  You shake your head.  But surely it is due to Miss Halkett.  She should be protected from what will certainly wound her deeply.  Her father is afraid of you, on the score of your theories.  I foresee it:  he will hear the