"We shall have to talk of it, and had better become used to it among ourselves. I don't suppose that Miss Altifiorla has invented the story out of her own head. She would not say that she was engaged to marry my uncle if it were not true."

"It's my belief," said the Dean, getting up and walking out of the room in great anger, "that Sir Francis Geraldine will never marry Miss Altifiorla."

"I don't think my brother will ever marry Miss Altifiorla," said Mrs.

Dean. "He is very silly and very vicious, but I don't think he'll ever do anything so bad as that."

"Poor Miss Altifiorla!" said Mrs. Thorne afterwards to her Aunt Forrester.

That same evening Miss Altifiorla, feeling that she had broken the ice, and, oppressed by the weight of the secret which was a secret still in every house in Exeter except the Deanery, wrote to her other friend Mrs. Green, and begged her to come down. She had tidings to tell of the greatest importance. So Mrs. Green put on her bonnet and came down. "My dear," said Miss Altifiorla, "I have something to tell you. I am going to be--"

"Not married!" said Mrs. Green.

"Yes, I am. How very odd that you should guess. But yet when I come to think of it I don't know that it is odd. Because after all there does come a time in,--a lady's life when it is probable that she will marry." Miss Altifiorla hesitated, having in the first instance desired to use the word girl.

"That's as may be," said Mrs. Green. "Your principles used to be on the other side."

"Of course all that changes when the opportunity comes. It wasn't so much that I disliked the idea of marriage, for myself, as that I was proud of the freedom which I enjoyed. However that is all over. I am free no longer."

"And who is it to be?"

"Ah, who is it to be? Can you make a guess?"

"Not in the least. I don't know of anybody who has been spooning you."

"Oh, what a term to use! No one can say that anyone ever--spooned me.

It is a horrible word. And I cannot bear to hear it fall from my own lips."

"It is what young men do do," said Mrs. Green.

"That I think depends on the rank in life which the young men occupy;--and also the young women. I can understand that a Bank clerk should do it to an attorney's daughter."

"Well; who is it you are going to marry without spooning, which in my vocabulary is simply another word for two young people being fond of each other?" Miss Altifiorla remained silent for a while, feeling that she owed it to herself to awe her present companion by her manner before she should crush her altogether by the weight of the name she would have to p.r.o.nounce. Mrs. Green had received her communication flippantly, and had probably felt that her friend intended to demean herself by some mere common marriage. "Who is to be the happy swain?" asked Mrs. Green.

"Swain!" said Miss Altifiorla, unable to repress her feelings.

"Well; lover, young man, suitor, husband as is to be. Some word common on such occasion will I suppose fit him?"

Miss Altifiorla felt that no word common on such occasions would fit him. But yet it was necessary that she should name him, having gone so far. And, having again been silent for a minute, so as to bethink herself in what most dignified language this might be done, she proceeded. "I am to be allied,"--again there was a little pause,--"to Sir Francis Geraldine!"

"Him Cecilia Holt rejected!"

"Him who I think was fortunate enough to escape Cecilia Holt."

"Goodness gracious! It seems but the other day."

"Cecilia Holt has since recovered from her wounds and married another husband, and is now suffering from fresh wounds. Is it odd that the gentleman should have found some one else to love when the lady has had time not only to love but to marry, and to be separated from another man?"

"Sir Francis Geraldine!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mrs. Green. "Well; I'm sure I wish you all the joy in the world. When is it to be?" But Mrs.

Green had so offended Miss Altifiorla by her manner of accepting the news that she could not bring herself to make any further gracious answer. Mrs. Green therefore took her leave, and the fact of Miss Altifiorla's engagement was soon known all over Exeter.

CHAPTER XXI.

LADY GRANT AT DRESDEN.

"You have first to believe the story as I tell it you, and get out of your head altogether the story as you have conceived it." This was said by Lady Grant to her brother when she had travelled all the way to Dresden with the purpose of inducing him to take his wife back.

She had come there solely with that object, and it must be said of her that she had well done her duty as a sister. But she found it by no means easy to induce her brother to look at the matter with her eyes. In fact, it was evident to her that he did not believe the story as she had told it. She must go on and din it into his ears till by perseverance she should change his belief. He still thought that credit should be given to that letter from Sir Francis, although he was aware that to Sir Francis himself as a man he would have given no credit whatsoever. It had suited his suspicions to believe that there had been something in common between Sir Francis and his wife up to the moment in which the terrible fact of her engagement had been made known to him; and from that belief he could not free his mind. He had already been persuaded to say that she should come back to him; but she should come as a sinner confessing her sin. He would take her back, but as one whom he had been justified in expelling, and to whom he should be held as extending great mercy.

But Lady Grant would not accept of his mercy, nor would she encourage her coming back with such a purpose. It would not be good in the first place for him that he should think that his wife had been an offender. His future happiness must depend on his fixed belief in her purity and truth. And, as for her,--Lady Grant was sure that no entreaties would induce her to own that she had been in the wrong.

She desired to have no pardon asked, but would certainly ask for no pardon on her own behalf.

"Why was it that he came, then, to my house?" asked Mr. Western.

"Am I, or rather is she, to account for the conduct of such a man as that? Are you to make her responsible for his behaviour?"

"She was engaged to him."

"Undoubtedly. It should have been told to you,--though I can understand the reasons which kept her silent from day to day. The time will come when you will understand it also, and know, as I do, how gracious and how feminine has been her silence." Then there came across her brother's face a look of doubt as indicating his feeling that nothing could have justified her silence. "Yes, George; the time will come that you will understand her altogether although you are far from doing so now."

"I believe you think her to be perfect," said he.

"Hardly perfect, because she is a human being. But although I know her virtues I have not known her faults. It may be that she is too proud,--a little unwilling, perhaps, to bend. Most women will bend whether they be in fault or not. But would you wish your wife to do so?"

"I, at any rate, have not asked her."

"You, at any rate, have not given her the opportunity. My accusation against you is, that you sent her away from you on an accusation made solely by that man, and without waiting to hear from herself whether she would plead guilty to it."

"I deny it."

"Yes; I hear your denial. But you will have to acknowledge it, at any rate to yourself, before you can ever hope to be a happy man."

"When he wrote to me, I believed the whole story to be a lie from first to last."

"And when you found that it was not all a lie, then it became to you a gospel throughout. You could not understand that the very faults which had induced her to break her engagement were of a nature to make him tell his story untruly."

"When she acknowledged herself to have been engaged to him it nearly broke my heart."

"Just so. And, with your heart broken, you would not sift the truth.

She had committed no offence against you in engaging herself."

"She should have told me as soon as we knew each other."

"She should have told you before she accepted your offer. But she had been deterred from doing so by your own revelation to her. You cannot believe that she intended you always to be in the dark. You cannot imagine that she had expected that you should never hear of her adventure with Sir Francis Geraldine."

"I do not know."