Where am I? she cried amid her melting images of him, all dominated by his wan features.  She was bound fast, imprisoned and a slave.  Even Mr. Austin had conspired against him:  for only she read Nevil justly.  His defence of Dr. Shrapnel filled her with an envy that no longer maligned the object of it, but was humble, and like the desire of the sick to creep into sunshine.

The only worthy thing she could think of doing was (it must be mentioned for a revelation of her fallen state, and, moreover, she was not lusty of health at the moment) to abjure meat.  The body loathed it, and consequently the mind of the invalided lady shrank away in horror of the bleeding joints, and the increasingly fierce scramble of Christian souls for the dismembered animals:  she saw the innocent pasturing beasts, she saw the act of slaughter.  She had actually sweeping before her sight a spectacle of the ludicrous-terrific, in the shape of an entire community pursuing countless herds of poor scampering animal life for blood:  she, meanwhile, with Nevil and Dr. Shrapnel, stood apart contemning.  For whoso would not partake of flesh in this kingdom of roast beef must be of the sparse number of Nevil’s execrated minority in politics.

The example will show that she touched the borders of delirium.  Physically, the doctor pronounces her bilious.  She was in earnest so far as to send down to the library for medical books, and books upon diet.  These, however, did not plead for the beasts.  They treated the subject without question of man’s taking that which he has conquered.  Poets and philosophers did the same.  Again she beheld Nevil Beauchamp solitary in the adverse rank to the world;—­to his countrymen especially.  But that it was no material cause which had wasted his cheeks and lined his forehead, she was sure:  and to starve with him, to embark with him in his little boat on the seas he whipped to frenzy, would have been a dream of bliss, had she dared to contemplate herself in a dream as his companion.

It was not to be thought of.

No:  but this was, and to be thought of seriously:  Cecilia had said to herself for consolation that Beauchamp was no spiritual guide; he had her heart within her to plead for him, and the reflection came to her, like a bubble up from the heart, that most of our spiritual guides neglect the root to trim the flower:  and thence, turning sharply on herself, she obtained a sudden view of her allurement and her sin in worshipping herself, and recognized that the aim at an ideal life closely approaches, or easily inclines, to self-worship; to which the lady was woman and artist enough to have had no objection, but that therein visibly she discerned the retributive vain longings, in the guise of high individual superiority and distinction, that had thwarted her with Nevil Beauchamp, never permitting her to love single-mindedly or whole-heartedly, but always in reclaiming her rights and sighing for the loss of her ideal; adoring her own image, in fact, when she pretended to cherish, and regret that she could not sufficiently cherish, the finer elements of nature.  What was this ideal she had complained of losing?  It was a broken mirror:  she could think of it in no other form.