azing at him? That girl whom he had thought to
make his wife, and who had so openly jilted him, had never understood
him as Cecilia had done,--had never looked at him as Cecilia
had looked. But he, after he had been so treated,--happily so
treated,--had certainly never desired ever to see the girl. But this
wife of his, who was possessed of all the charms which a woman could
own, of whom he acknowledged to himself day after day that she was,
as regarded his taste, peerless and unequalled, she after breaking
from that man, that man unworthy to be called a gentleman, still
continued to hold intercourse with him! Was it not clear that she had
still remained on terms of intimacy with him?

His walk along the Elbe was very bitter, but yet he determined to
return to England with his sister.

CHAPTER XXII.

MR. WESTERN YIELDS.

The fact that Lady Grant had gone to Dresden was not long in reaching
the ears of Mrs. Western. Dick Ross had heard at the club at Perth
that she had gone, and had told Sir Francis. Sir Francis passed on
the news to Miss Altifiorla, and from her it had reached the deserted
wife. Miss Altifiorla had not told it direct, because at that time
she and Cecilia were not supposed to be on friendly terms. But the
tidings had got about and Mrs. Western had heard them.

"She's a good woman," said Cecilia to her mother. "I knew her to be
that the first moment that she came to me. She is rough as he is,
and stern, and has a will of her own. But her heart is tender and
true;--as is his also at the core."

"I don't know about that," said Mrs. Holt, with the angry tone which
she allowed herself to use only when speaking of Mr. Western.

"Yes; he is, mamma. In your affection for me you will not allow
yourself to be just to him. In truth you hardly know him."

"I know that he has destroyed your happiness for ever, and made me
very wretched."

"No, mamma; not for ever. It may be that he will come for me, and
that then we shall be as happy as the day is long." As she said
this a vision came before her eyes of the birth of her child and of
her surroundings at the time;--the anxious solicitude of a loving
husband, the care of attendants who would be happy because she was
happy, the congratulations of friends, and the smiles of the world.
But above all she pictured to herself her husband standing by her
bedside with the child in his arms. The dream had been dreamed
before, and was re-dreamed during every h