wished so to keep it as to be able to boast that she had kept it.
But still she was most anxious to break it in the spirit. She did
understand that she had bound herself not to divulge aught about Mrs.
Western's secret, and that were she to do so now to Sir Francis she
would be untrue to her friend. But the provocation was strong; and
she felt that Sir Francis was a man with whom it would be pleasant to
form an alliance.

"You must know," said Sir Francis.

"I don't see that I need know at all. Of course Cecilia does tell me
everything; but I do not see that for that reason I am bound to tell
anyone else."

"Then you do know."

"Know what?"

"Has she told him that she was engaged to me? Or does he not know it
without her telling him?" By this time they had become very intimate,
and were whispering backwards and forwards with each other at their
end of the carriage. All this was very pleasant to Miss Altifiorla.
She felt that she was becoming the recipient of an amount of
confidential friendship which had altogether been refused to her
during the last two weeks. Sir Francis was a baronet, and a man of
fashion, and a gentleman very well thought of in Devonshire, let
Mr. Western say what he might about his conduct. Mr. Western was
evidently a stiff stern man who did not like the amusements of other
gentlemen. Miss Altifiorla felt that she liked being the friend of a
man of fashion, and she despised Mr. Western. She threw herself back
on the seat and closed her eyes and laughed. But he pressed her with
the same question in another form. "Does he know that she was engaged
to me?"

"If you will ask me, I do not think that he does."

"You really mean to say that he had never heard of it before his
marriage?"

"What am I to do when you press me in this way? Remember that I do
not tell you anything of my own knowledge. It is only what I think."

"You just now said that she told you everything."

"But perhaps she doesn't know herself."

"At any rate there is a mystery about it."

"I think there is, Sir Francis." After that it was not very long
before Miss Altifiorla was induced to talk with great openness of the
whole affair, and before they had reached London she had divulged to
Sir Francis the fact that Mrs. Western had as yet told her husband
nothing of her previous engagement, and lived at the present moment
in awe at the idea of having to do so. "I had no conception that
Cecilia would have been such a cowar