“One of your oracular phrases!  Are you prepared to be straightforward in your dealings?”

“I am prepared for any sacrifice, Wilfrid.”

“The marrying of a man in his position is a sacrifice!”

“I cannot leave papa.”

“And why not?”

“He is ill.  He does not speak of it, but he is ill.  His actions are strange.  They are unaccountable.”

“He has an old friend to reside in his house?”

“It is not that.  I have noticed him.  His mind...he requires watching.”

“And how long is it since you made this discovery?”

“One sees clearer perhaps when one is not quite happy.”

“Not happy!  Then it’s for him that you turn the night to tears?”

Cornelia closed her lips.  She divined that her betrayer must be close in his confidence.  She went shortly after to Emilia, whose secret at once stood out bare to a kindled suspicion.  There was no fear that Cornelia would put her finger on it accusingly, or speak of it directly.  She had the sentimentalist’s profound respect for the name and notion of love.  She addressed Emilia vaguely, bidding her keep guard on her emotions, and telling her there was one test of the truth of masculine protestations; this, Will he marry you?  The which, if you are poor, is a passably infallible test.  Emilia sucked this in thoughtfully.  She heard that lovers were false.  Why, then of course they were not like her lover!  Cornelia finished what she deemed her duty, and departed, while Emilia thought:  “I wonder whether he could be false to me;” and she gave herself shrewd half-delicious jarrings of pain, forcing herself to contemplate the impossible thing.

She was in this state when Mrs. Chump came across her, and with a slight pressure of a sovereign into her hand, said:  “There, it’s for you, little Belloni! and I see ye’ve been thinkin’ me one o’ the scrape-hards and close-fists.  It’s Pole who keeps me low, on purpose.  And I’m a wretch if I haven’t my purse full, so you see I’m all in the dark in the house, and don’t know half so much as the sluts o’ the kitchen.  So, ye’ll tell me, little Belloni, is Arr’bella goin’ to marry Mr. Annybody?  And is Cornelia goin’ to marry Sir Tickleham?  And whether Mr. Wilfrud’s goin’ to marry Lady Charlotte Chill’nworth?  Becas, my dear, there’s Arr’bella, who’s sharp, she is, as a North-easter in January, (which Chump ’d cry out for, for the sake of his ships, poor fella—­he kneelin’ by ’s bedside in a long nightgown and lookin’ just twice what he was!) she has me like a nail to my vary words, and shows me that nothin’ can happen betas o’ what I’ve said.  And Cornelia—­if ye’ll fancy a tall codfish on its tail:  ’Mrs. Chump, I beg ye’ll not go to believe annything of me.’  So I says to her, ’Cornelia! my dear! do ye think, now, it’s true that Chump went and marrud his cook, that ye treat me so? becas my father,’ I tell her, ’he dealt in porrk in a large way, and I was a fine woman, full of the