l me how I could suppose you were alluding to them. You bring
them forward now to justify your charge of "fatal" against her. She has
one fault; she wants courage; she has none other, not one that is not
excuseable. We won't speak of France. What did her father 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 woul