ess did she retain her cold resolution to
marry to please her father and fulfil her pledge. In truth, it was too
late to speak of Renee to her now. It did not beseem Cecilia to remember
that she had ever been a victim of jealousy; and while confessing to many
errors, because she felt them, and gained a necessary strength from
them--in the comfort of the consciousness of pain, for example, which she
sorely needed, that the pain in her own breast might deaden her to
Nevil's jealousy, the meanest of the errors of a lofty soul, yielded no
extract beyond the bare humiliation proper to an acknowledgement that it
had existed: so she discarded the recollection of the passion which had
wrought the mischief. Since we cannot have a peerless flower of
civilization without artificial aid, it may be understood how it was that
Cecilia could extinguish some lights in her mind and kindle others, and
wherefore what it was not natural for her to do, she did. She had,
briefly, a certain control of herself.

Our common readings in the fictitious romances which mark out a plot and
measure their characters to fit into it, had made Rosamund hopeful of the
effect of that story of Renee. A wooden young woman, or a galvanized
(sweet to the writer, either of them, as to the reader--so moveable they
are!) would have seen her business at this point, and have glided melting
to reconciliation and the chamber where romantic fiction ends joyously.
Rosamund had counted on it.

She looked intently at Cecilia. 'He is ruined, wasted, ill, unloved; he
has lost you--I am the cause!' she cried in a convulsion of grief.

'Dear Lady Romfrey!' Cecilia would have consoled her. 'There is nothing
to lead us to suppose that Nevil is unwell, and you are not to blame for
anything: how can you be?'

'I spoke falsely of Dr. Shrapnel; I am the cause. It lies on me! it
pursues me. Let me give to the poor as I may, and feel for the poor, as I
do, to get nearer to Nevil--I cannot have peace! His heart has turned
from me. He despises me. If I had spoken to Lord Romfrey at Steynham, as
he commanded me, you and he--Oh! cowardice: he is right, cowardice is the
chief evil in the world. He is ill; he is desperately ill; he will die.'

'Have you heard he is very ill, Lady Romfrey?'

'No! no!' Rosamund exclaimed; 'it is by not hearing that I know it!'

With the assistance of Louise Devereux, Cecilia gradually awakened to
what was going on in the house. There had been a corresp