asted but for six weeks after her engagement.
During those six weeks all Exeter knew of it. There was no reticence
on the part of any one. Sir Francis Geraldine had fallen in love
with Cecilia Holt and a great triumph had been won. Cecilia, in
spite of her general well-known objection to lovers, had triumphed
a little. It is not to be supposed that she had miscarried herself
outrageously. He is cold-hearted, almost cruel, who does not like
to see the little triumph of a girl in such circumstances, who will
not sympathise with her, and join with her, if occasion come, in her
exaltation. No fault was found with Cecilia among her friends in
Exeter, but it was a fact that she did triumph. How it was that the
time of her worship then came to an end it would be difficult to say.
She was perhaps struck by neglect, or something which appeared to her
to be almost scorn. And the man himself, she found, was ignorant.
The ill-temper had lost its picturesqueness, and become worse than
grotesque. And the selfishness seemed to be displayed on an object
not so high as to render it justifiable. Then came a fortnight of
vacillating misery, in which she did not dare to tell her discomfort
to either of her friends. Her mother, who, though she could not
read Schiller, was as anxious for her daughter's happiness as any
mother could be, saw something of this and at last ventured to ask
a question. "Was not Francis to have been here this morning?"

Cecilia was at that moment thinking of her lover, thinking that he
had been untrue to his tryst now for the third time; and thinking
also that she knew him to be untrue not with any valid excuse, not
with the slightest cause for an excuse, but with a pre-determination
to show the girl to whom he was engaged that it did not suit him any
longer to be at the trouble of serving her. "Oh, mamma, how foolish
you are! How can I tell what Sir Francis Geraldine may be doing?"

"But I thought he was to have been here."

"Mamma, please understand that I do not carry him about tied to my
apron-strings. When it pleases him to come he will come." Then she
went on with her book and was silent for a minute or two. Then she
broke out again. "I am sure there ought to be a rule in life that
people when they are engaged should never see each other again till
they meet in the church."

"I don't think that would do at all, my dear."

"Perhaps things were different when you were young. The world becomes
less simple