ttempted any
word of excuse? Have you given any reason why I should have been kept
in the dark? Your friend Miss Altifiorla knew it all I presume?"

"Yes, she knew it all."

"And you would not have had her here if you could have avoided it
lest she should tell me?"

"That is true. I wished to be the first to tell you myself."

"And yet you had never whispered a word of it. Miss Altifiorla and
Sir Francis it seems are friends." Cecilia only shook her head. "I
heard yesterday at the station that they had gone to London together.
I presume they are friends."

Quickly the idea passed through Mrs. Western's mind that Miss
Altifiorla had been untrue to her. She had kept her word to the
letter in not having told the secret to her husband but she had
discussed the whole matter with Sir Francis, and the letter which Sir
Francis had written was the result. "I do not know," she said. "If
they be more to each other than chance acquaintance I do not know it.
From week to week and from day to day before our marriage the thing
went on and the opportunity never came. Something would always fall
from you which made me afraid to speak at that moment. Then we were
married, and I found how wrong I had been. I still resolved to tell
you, but put it off like a coward from day to day. Your sister had
heard of my first engagement."

"Did Bertha know it?"

"Yes; and like myself she was surprised that you should be so
ignorant."

"She might well be surprised."

"Then I resolved to tell you. I would not do it till that other woman
had left the house. I would not have her by to see your anger."

"And now this is the way in which the history of your former life has
reached my ears!" As he said this he held out in his hand the fatal
letter. "This is the manner in which you have left me to be informed
of a subject so interesting! I first hear from Sir Francis Geraldine
that he and you a twelvemonth since were engaged together as man and
wife." Here she stood quite silent. She did not care to tell him
that it was more than twelve months since. "That you think to be
becoming."

"I do not think so."

"That you feel to be compatible with my happiness!" Here, again,
there was a pause, during which she looked full into his face. "Such
is not my idea. My happiness is wrecked. It is gone." Here he made a
motion with his hand, as though to show that all his bliss had flown
away from him.

"Oh, George, if you love me, do not speak like that!