Kept in the Dark | Page 7

his brow a look of anger and of hot ill-humour, such as she had never seen there before. The effect was to induce her to respect him rather than to be afraid of him. It was well that a man should have the power and the courage to show his anger.
But it encouraged her to proceed with her task. She certainly was not afraid of him personally, though she did dread what the world might say of her, and especially what might be said by his friends. "I do not know that I have done anything amiss of which I need tell you," she said with quiet dignity. "It is rather that which I intend to do. I fear, Sir Francis, that you and I have made a mistake in this."
"What mistake?" he shouted. "While you beat about the bush I shall never understand you."
"In our proposed marriage."
"What?"
"I fear that I should not make you happy."
"What on earth do you mean?" Then he paused a moment before he continued, which he did as though he had discovered suddenly the whole secret. "You have got another lover."
There was something in the idea so shocking to Cecilia, so revolting,--so vulgar in the mode of expression, that the feeling at once gave her the strength necessary to go on with her task. She would not condescend to answer the accusation, but at once told her story in plain language. "I think, Sir Francis Geraldine, that you do not feel for me the regard that would make me happy as your wife. Do not interrupt me just at present," she said, stopping him, as some exclamation was escaping from his lips. "Hear me to the end, and, if you have ought to say, I will then hear you. Of my own regard for you I will say nothing. But I think that I have been mistaken as to your nature. In fact, I feel sure that we are neither of us that which the other supposed. It is lamentable that we should have fallen into such an error, but it is well that even yet we can escape from it before it is too late. As my mind is altogether made up, I can only ask your pardon for what I have done to you, expressing myself sure at the same time that I am now best consulting your future happiness."
During this last speech of Cecilia's, Sir Francis had sat down, while she still stood in her old place. He had seated himself on the sofa, assuming as it were a look of profound ease, and arranging the nails of one hand with the fingers of the other, as though he were completely indifferent to the words spoken to him. "Have you done yet?" he said as soon as she was silent.
"Yes, I have done."
"And you are sure that if I begin you will not interrupt me till I have done?"
"I think not,--if there be ought that you have to say."
"Well, considering that ten minutes since I was engaged to make you Lady Geraldine, and that I am now supposed to be absolved from any such necessity, I presume you will think it expedient that I should say something. I suppose that I have not been told the whole truth." Then he stopped, as though in spite of his injunction as to her silence he expected an answer from her. But she made none, though there came a cloud of anger upon her face. "I suppose, I say, that there is something of which it is not considered necessary that I should be informed. There must be something of the kind, or you would hardly abandon prospects which a few days since appeared to you to be so desirable."
"I have not thought it necessary to speak of your temper," she said.
"Nor of your own."
"Nor of my own," she added.
"But there is, I take it, something beyond that. I do not think that my temper, bad as it may be,--nor your own,--would have sufficed to estrange you. There must be something more palpable than temper to have occasioned it. And though you have not thought fit to tell me, you must feel that my position justifies me in asking. Have you another lover?"
"No," she exclaimed, burning with wrath but with head so turned from him that he should not see her.
"Nor have ever had one? I am entitled to ask the question, though perhaps I should have asked it before."
"You are at any rate not entitled to ask it now. Sir Francis Geraldine, between you and me all is over. I can only beg you to understand most positively that all is over."
"My dear Miss Holt, you need not insist upon that, as it is perfectly understood."
"Then there need be no further words. If I