ding to and succeeding her lover's
abrupt, 'You will dance' which had all passed by her dream-like up to
that hour his attempt to forewarn her of the phrases she would deem
objectionable in Dr. Shrapnel's letter; his mild acceptation of her
father's hostility; his adieu to her, and his melancholy departure on
foot from the station, as she drove away to Mount Laurels and gaiety.
Why do I dance? she asked herself. It was not in the spirit of
happiness. Her heart was not with Dr. Shrapnel, but very near him,
and heavy as a chamber of the sick. She was afraid of her father's
favourite, imagining, from the colonel's unconcealed opposition to
Beauchamp, that he had designs in the interests of Mr. Tuckham. But
the hearty gentleman scattered her secret terrors by his bluffness
and openness. He asked her to remember that she had recommended him to
listen to Seymour Austin, and he had done so, he said. Undoubtedly he
was much improved, much less overbearing.

He won her confidence by praising and loving her father, and when she
alluded to the wonderful services he had rendered on the Welsh estate,
he said simply that her father's thanks repaid him. He recalled his
former downrightness only in speaking of the case of Dr. Shrapnel,
upon which, both with the colonel and with her, he was unreservedly
condemnatory of Mr. Romfrey. Colonel Halkett's defence of the true
knight and guardian of the reputation of ladies, fell to pieces in the
presence of Mr. Tuckham. He had seen Dr. Shrapnel, on a visit to Mr.
Lydiard, whom he described as hanging about Bevisham, philandering as
a married man should not, though in truth he might soon expect to be
released by the death of his crazy wife. The doctor, he said, had been
severely shaken by the monstrous assault made on him, and had been most
unrighteously handled. The doctor was an inoffensive man in his private
life, detestable and dangerous though his teachings were. Outside
politics Mr. Tuckham went altogether with Beauchamp. He promised also
that old Mrs. Beauchamp should be accurately informed of the state of
matters between Captain Beauchamp and Mr. Romfrey. He left Mount Laurels
to go back in attendance on the venerable lady, without once afflicting
Cecilia with a shiver of well-founded apprehension, and she was grateful
to him almost to friendly affection in the vanishing of her unjust
suspicion, until her father hinted that there was the man of his heart.
Then she closed all avenues to