r, and say what he feared and desired for
Emilia's sake; and Georgiana read, by this mark of confidence, how
sincerely she was loved and trusted by him. "One never can have more than
half of a man's heart," she thought--adding, "It's our duty to deserve
that, nevertheless."

She was mystified. Say that Merthyr loved a girl, whom he certainly
distinguished with some visible affection, what sort of man must he be
that was preferred to Merthyr? And this set Georgiana at work thinking of
Wilfrid. "He has at times the air of a student. He is one who trusts his
own light too exclusively. Is he godless?" She concluded: "He is a
soldier, and an officer with brains--a good class:" Rare also.
Altogether, though Emilia did not elevate herself in this lady's mind by
choosing Wilfrid when she might have had Merthyr, the rivalry of the two
men helped to dignify the one of whom she thought least. Might she have
had Merthyr? Georgiana would not believe it--that is to say, she shut the
doors and shot the bolts, the knocking outside went on.

Her brother had told her the whole circumstances of Emilia's life and
position. When he said, "Do what you can for her," she knew that it was
not the common empty phrase. Young as she was, simple in habits, clear in
mind, open in all practices of daily life, she was no sooner brought into
an active course than astuteness and impetuosity combined wonderfully in
her. She did not tell Merthyr that she had done anything to discover
Emilia, and only betrayed that she was moving at all in a little
conversation they had about a meeting at the house of his friend Marini,
an Italian exile.

"Possibly Belloni goes there," said Merthyr. "I wonder whether Marini
knows anything of him. They have a meeting every other night."

Georgiana replied: "He went there and took his daughter the night after
we were at Besworth. He took her to be sworn in."

"Still that old folly of Marini's!" cried Merthyr, almost wrathfully. He
had some of the English objection to the mixing-up of women in political
matters.

Georgiana instantly addressed herself to it: "He thinks that the country
must be saved by its women as well as its men; and if they have not
brains and steadfast devotion, he concludes that the country will not be
saved. But he gives them their share of the work; and, dearest, has he
had reason to repent it?"

"No," Merthyr was forced to admit--taking shelter in his antipathy to the
administration of an oath