say?'

'Colonel Halkett? I do not know. He and his daughter come here next
week, and the colonel will expect to meet you here. That does not look
like so positive an objection to you?'

'To me personally, no,' said Beauchamp. 'But Mr. Romfrey has not told me
that I am to meet them.'

'Perhaps he has not thought it worth while. It is not his way. He has
asked you to come. You and Miss Halkett will be left to yourselves. Her
father assured Mr. Romfrey that he should not go beyond advising her.
His advice might not be exactly favourable to you at present, but if you
sued and she accepted--and she would, I am convinced she would; she was
here with me, talking of you a whole afternoon, and I have eyes--then
he would not oppose the match, and then I should see you settled, the
husband of the handsomest wife and richest heiress in England.'

A vision of Cecilia swam before him, gracious in stateliness.

Two weeks back Renee's expression of a wish that he would marry
had seemed to him an idle sentence in a letter breathing of her own
intolerable situation. The marquis had been struck down by illness. What
if she were to be soon suddenly free? But Renee could not be looking
to freedom, otherwise she never would have written the wish for him to
marry. She wrote perhaps hearing temptation whisper; perhaps wishing
to save herself and him by the aid of a tie that would bring his honour
into play and fix his loyalty. He remembered Dr. Shrapnel's written
words: 'Rebellion against society and advocacy of humanity run counter.'
They had a stronger effect on him than when he was ignorant of his uncle
Everard's plan to match him with Cecilia. He took refuge from them in
the image of that beautiful desolate Renee, born to be beloved, now
wasted, worse than trodden under foot--perverted; a life that looked
to him for direction and resuscitation. She was as good as dead in her
marriage. It was impossible for him ever to think of Renee without the
surprising thrill of his enchantment with her, and tender pity that drew
her closer to him by darkening her brightness.

Still a man may love his wife. A wife like Cecilia was not to be
imagined coldly. Let the knot once be tied, it would not be regretted,
could not be; hers was a character, and hers a smile, firmly assuring
him of that.

He told Mr. Romfrey that he should be glad to meet Colonel Halkett and
Cecilia. Business called him to Holdesbury. Thence he betook himself to
Dr. Shrapne