not have happened? Cecilia gathered
it from Mrs. Wardour-Devereux, whom, to her surprise and pleasure, she
found at Romfrey Castle. Her friend Louise received a letter from Mr.
Lydiard, containing a literary amateur seaman's log of a cruise of a
fifteen-ton cutter in a gale, and a pure literary sketch of Beauchamp
standing drenched at the helm from five in the morning up to nine at
night, munching a biscuit for nourishment. The beautiful widow prepared
the way for what was very soon to be publicly known concerning herself
by reading out this passage of her correspondent's letter in the
breakfast room.

'Yes, the fellow's a sailor!' said Lord Romfrey.

The countess rose from her chair and walked out.

'Now, was that abuse of the fellow?' the old lord asked Colonel Halkett.
'I said he was a sailor, I said nothing else. He is a sailor, and he's
fit for nothing else, and no ship will he get unless he bends his neck
never 's nearer it.'

He hesitated a moment, and went after his wife.

Cecilia sat with the countess, in the afternoon, at a window overlooking
the swelling woods of Romfrey. She praised the loveliness of the view.

'It is fire to me,' said Rosamund.

Cecilia looked at her, startled. Rosamund said no more.

She was an excellent hostess, nevertheless, unpretending and simple in
company; and only when it chanced that Beauchamp's name was mentioned
did she cast that quick supplicating nervous glance at the earl, with
a shadow of an elevation of her shoulders, as if in apprehension of
mordant pain.

We will make no mystery about it. I would I could. Those happy tales of
mystery are as much my envy as the popular narratives of the deeds
of bread and cheese people, for they both create a tide-way in the
attentive mind; the mysterious pricking our credulous flesh to creep,
the familiar urging our obese imagination to constitutional exercise.
And oh, the refreshment there is in dealing with characters either
contemptibly beneath us or supernaturally above! My way is like a Rhone
island in the summer drought, stony, unattractive and difficult between
the two forceful streams of the unreal and the over-real, which delight
mankind--honour to the conjurors! My people conquer nothing, win none;
they are actual, yet uncommon. It is the clock-work of the brain that
they are directed to set in motion, and--poor troop of actors to vacant
benches!--the conscience residing in thoughtfulness which they would
appeal to; a