ect may be. I
wish you would think better of it, Sir Francis."

"And leave myself to stand in my present very uncomfortable position!
And that after such treatment as hers. I have thought it all over,
and have found myself bound in honour to inform him. And it is for
the sake of letting you know that I have come here. Perhaps you may
be called upon to say or do something in the matter."

"I suppose it cannot be helped," said Miss Altifiorla with a sigh.

"It cannot," he replied.

"Poor dear Cecilia. She has brought it on her own head. I must get
into my train now, as we are just off. I am so much obliged to you
for coming to see me start."

"We shall meet each other before long," he said, as she again kissed
her hand and took her departure. Miss Altifiorla could not but think
what a happy chance it was that prevented his marriage with Cecilia
Holt.

CHAPTER XI.

MR. WESTERN HEARS THE STORY.

It was the custom for Mr. Western to come down into the library
before breakfast, and there to receive his letters. On the morning
after Miss Altifiorla's departure he got one by which it may be said
that he was indeed astonished. It can seldom be the case that a
man shall receive a letter by which he is so absolutely lifted out
of his own world of ordinary contentment into another absolutely
different. And the world into which he was lifted was one black with
unintelligible storms and clouds. It was as though everything were
suddenly changed for him. The change was of a nature which altogether
unmanned him. Had he been ruined that would have been as nothing in
comparison. The death of no friend,--so he told himself in the first
moment of his misery,--could have so afflicted him. He read the
letter through twice and thrice, and then sat silent with it in his
hand thinking of it. There could be but one relief, but that relief
must surely be forthcoming. The letter could not be true. How to
account for its falsehood, how to explain to himself that such a
letter should have been written to him without any foundation for
it, without any basis on which such a story could be constructed, he
could not imagine to himself. But he resolved not to believe it. He
saw that were he to believe it, and to have believed it wrongly, the
offence given would be ineffable. He should never dare to look his
wife in the face again. It was at any rate infinitely safer for him
to disbelieve it. He sat there mute, immovable, without a chang