auchamp in the neighbourhood; I'm not so blind. He'll be
knocking at my door, and I can't lock him out. Austin, would you guess it
was my girl speaking? I never in my life had such an example of
intoxication before me. I 'm perfectly miserable at the sight. You. know
her; she was the proudest girl living. Her ideas were orderly and sound;
she had a good intellect. Now she more than half defends him--a naval
officer! good Lord!--for getting up in a public room to announce that he
's a Republican, and writing heaps of mad letters to justify himself.
He's ruined in his profession: hopeless! He can never get a ship: his
career's cut short, he's a rudderless boat. A gentleman drifting to
Bedlam, his uncle calls him. I call his treatment of Grancey Lespel
anything but gentlemanly. This is the sort of fellow my girl worships!
What can I do? I can't interdict the house to him: it would only make
matters worse. Thank God, the fellow hangs fire somehow, and doesn't come
to me. I expect it every day, either in a letter or the man in person.
And I declare to heaven I'd rather be threading a Khyber Pass with my
poor old friend who fell to a shot there.'

'She certainly has another voice,' Mr. Austin assented gravely.

He did not look on Beauchamp as the best of possible husbands for
Cecilia.

'Let her see that you're anxious, Austin,' said the colonel. 'I'm her old
opponent in this affair. She loves me, but she's accustomed to think me
prejudiced: you she won't. You may have a good effect.'

'Not by speaking.'

'No, no; no assault: not a word, and not a word against him. Lay the wind
to catch a gossamer. I've had my experience of blowing cold, and trying
to run her down. He's at Shrapnel's. He'll be up here to-day, and I have
an engagement in the town. Don't quit her side. Let her fancy you are
interested in some discussion--Radicalism, if you like.'

Mr. Austin readily undertook to mount guard over her while her father
rode into Bevisham on business.

The enemy appeared.

Cecilia saw him, and could not step to meet him for trouble of heart. It
was bliss to know that he lived and was near.

A transient coldness following the fit of ecstasy enabled her to swin
through the terrible first minutes face to face with him.

He folded her round like a mist; but it grew a problem to understand why
Mr. Austin should be perpetually at hand, in the garden, in the woods, in
the drawing-room, wheresoever she wakened up from one of her