more she tried
to bring herself to follow him and tell him, the more she assured
herself that there should be no necessity. How ought she to have told
him, and when? At every point of his story should she have made known
to him the same point in hers? "It was exactly the same with me." "I
wouldn't have my young man because he was indifferent." "With yours
there was another lover ready. That has yet to come with me." "You
have come abroad for consolation. So have I." It would have been
impossible;--was impossible. "I think it nicer as it is," he had
said, and she could not do it.

There was some security while they were travelling, and she wished
that they might travel for ever. She was happy while with him alone;
and so too was he. But for her secret she was completely happy.
Let him only be kept in the dark and he would be happy always. She
idolised him as her own. She loved him the better for thinking that
"it was nicer as it is;"--or would have done, had it been so. Why
should they go where some sudden tidings might mar his joy;--where
some sudden tidings certainly would do so sooner or later? Still they
went on and on till in May they reached his house in Berkshire,--he
with infinite joy at his heart, and she with the load upon hers.

Early in May they reached Durton Lodge, in Berkshire, and there they
stayed during the summer. Mr. Western had his house in London, and
there was a question whether they would not go there for the season.
But Cecilia had begged to be taken to her house in the country, and
there she remained. Durton Lodge was little more than a cottage, but
it was very pretty and prettily situated. When the Ascot week came
he offered to take her there, but offered it with a smile which she
understood to mean that his proposal should not be accepted. Indeed
she had no wish for Ascot or for any place in which he or she must
meet their old friends. Might it not be possible if they both could
be happy at Durton that there they might remain with some minimum of
intercourse with the world? Six months had now passed by since they
had become engaged and no good-natured friend had as yet told him the
truth. Might it not be possible that the same silence should be as
yet preserved? If years could be made to run on then he would have
become used to her, and the telling of the secret would not be so
severe.

But there came to her a great trouble in regard to her letters from
Exeter. Miss Altifiorla would fill h