"I declare I do not know," said Cecilia, "that is the plain truth; I cannot recollect--I cannot be certain what there is in them."

"But it is not so long ago, Cecilia,--only two years?"

"That is true, but so many great events have happened since, and such new feelings, all that early nonsense was swept out of my mind. I never really loved that wretch--"

A gleam of joy came across Helen's face.

"Never, never," repeated Lady Cecilia.

"Oh, I am happy still," cried Helen. "I told your mother I was sure of this."

"Good heavens!--Does she know about this packet?"

"No, no!--how could she? But what frightens you, my dear Cecilia? you say there is nothing wrong in the letters?"

"Nothing--nothing."

"Then make no wrong out of nothing," cried Helen. "If you break confidence with your husband, that confidence will never, never unite again--your mother says so."

"My mother!" cried Cecilia: "Good heavens!--so she does suspect?--tell me, Helen, tell me what she suspects."

"That you did not at first--before you were married, tell the general the whole truth about Colonel D'Aubigny."

Cecilia was silent.

"But it is not yet too late," said Helen, earnestly; "you can set it all right now--this is the moment, my dearest Cecilia. Do, do," cried Helen, "do tell him all--bid him look at the letters."

"Look at them! Impossible! Impossible!" said Lady Cecilia. "Bid me die rather."

She turned quite away.

"Listen to me, Cecilia;" she held her fast. "You must do it, Cecilia."

"Helen, I cannot."

"You can, indeed you can," said Helen; "only have courage _now_, and you will be happier all your life afterwards."

"Do not ask it--do not ask it--it is all in vain, you are wasting time."

"No, no--not wasting time; and in short, Cecilia, you must do what I ask of you, for it is right; and I will not do what you ask of me, for it is wrong."

"You will not!--You will not!" cried Lady Cecilia, breathless. "After all! You will not receive the packet for me! you will not let the general believe the letters to be yours! Then I am undone! You will not do it!--Then do not talk to me--do not talk to me--you do not know General Clarendon. If his jealousy were once roused, you have no idea what it would be."

"If the man were alive," said Helen, "but since he is dead--"

"But Clarendon would never forgive me for having loved another--"

"You said you did not love him."

"Nor did I ever _really_ love that man; but still Clarendon, from even seeing those letters, might think I did. The very fact of having written such letters would be destruction to me with Clarendon. You do not know Clarendon. How can I convince you it is impossible for me to tell him?

At the time he first proposed for me--oh! how I loved him, and feared to lose him. One day my mother, when I was not by, said something--I do not know what, about a first love, let fall something about that hateful D'Aubigny, and the general came to me in such a state! Oh, Helen, in such a state! I thought it was all at an end. He told me he never would marry any woman on earth who had ever loved another. I told him I never had, and that was true, you know; but then I went a little beyond perhaps. I said I had never THOUGHT of anybody else, for he made such a point of that. In short, I was a coward--a fool; I little foresaw--I laughed it off, and told him that what mamma had said was all a mistake, all nonsense; that Colonel D'Aubigny was a sort of universal flirt--and that was very true, I am sure: that he had admired us both, both you and me, but you last, you most, Helen, I said."

"Oh, Cecilia, how could you say so, when you knew he never cared for me in the least?"

"Forgive me, my dear, for there was no other way; and what harm did it do you, or what harm can it ever do you? It only makes it the easier for you to help me--to save me now. And Granville," continued Lady Cecilia, thinking that was the obstacle in Helen's mind, "and Granville need never know it."

Helen's countenance suddenly changed--"Granville! I never thought of that!" and now that she did think of it, she reproached herself with the selfishness of that fear. Till this moment, she knew her motives had been all singly for Cecilia's happiness; now the fear she felt of this some way hurting her with Beauclerc made her less resolute. Lady Cecilia saw her giving way and hurried on----

"Oh, my dear Helen! I know I have been very wrong, but you would not quite give me up, would you?--Oh! for my mother's sake! Consider how it would be with my mother, so ill as you saw her! I am sure if anything broke out now in my mother's state of health it would be fatal."

Helen became excessively agitated.

"Oh, Helen! would you make me the death of that mother?--Oh, Helen, save her! and do what you will with me afterwards. It will be only for a few hours--only a few hours!" repeated Lady Cecilia, seeing that these words made a great impression upon Helen,--"Save me, Helen! save my mother."

She sank upon her knees, clasping her hands in an agony of supplication.

Helen bent down her head and was silent--she could no longer refuse.

"Then I must," said she.

"Oh thank you! bless you!" cried Lady Cecilia in an ecstasy--"you will take the letters?"

"Yes," Helen feebly said; "yes, since it must be so."

Cecilia embraced her, thanked her, blessed her, and hastily left the room, but in an instant afterward she returned, and said, "One thing I forgot, and I must tell you. Think of my forgetting it! The letters are not signed with my real name, they are signed Emma--Henry and Emma!--Oh folly, folly! My dear, dear friend! save me but now, and I never will be guilty of the least deception again during my whole life; believe me, believe me! When once my mother is safely gone I will tell Clarendon all. Look at me, dear Helen, look at me and believe me."

And Helen looked at her, and Helen believed her.

CHAPTER XV.

Helen slept no more this night. When alone in the stillness of the long hours, she went over and over again all that had pa.s.sed, what Cecilia had said, what she had at first thought and afterwards felt, all the persuasions by which she had been wrought upon, and, on the contrary, all the reasons by which she ought to be decided; backward and forward her mind vibrated, and its painful vacillation could not be stilled.

"What am I going to do? To tell a falsehood! That cannot be right; but in the circ.u.mstances--yet this is Cecilia's own way of palliating the fault that her mother so fears in her--that her mother trusted to me to guard her against; and now, already, even before Lady Davenant has left us, I am going to a.s.sist Cecilia in deceiving her husband, and on that very dangerous point--Colonel D'Aubigny." Lady Davenant's foreboding having already been so far accomplished struck Helen fearfully, and her warning voice in the dead silence of that night sounded, and her look was upon her, so strongly, that she for an instant hid her head to get rid of her image. "But what _can_ I do? her own life is at stake! No less a motive could move me, but this ought--must--shall decide me. Yet, if Lady Davenant were to know it!--and I, in the last hours I have to pa.s.s with her--the last I ever may have with her, shall I deceive her? But it is not deceit, only prudence--necessary prudence; what a physician would order, what even humanity requires. I am satisfied it is quite right, quite, and I will go to sleep that I may be strong, and calm, and do it all well in the morning. After all, I have been too cowardly; frightening myself about nothing; too scrupulous--for what is it I have promised? only to receive the letters as if they were mine.

Not to _say_ that they are mine; he will not ask me, Cecilia thinks he will not ask me. But how can she tell? if he should, what _can_ I do? I must then answer that they are mine. Indeed it is the same thing, for I should lead him to believe it as much by my receiving them in silence; it will be telling or acting an absolute falsehood, and can that ever be right?" Back it came to the same point, and in vain her cheek settled on the pillow and she thought she could sleep. Then with closed eyes she considered how the general would look, and speak, or not speak. "What will he think of me when he sees the picture--the letters? for he must open the packet. But he will not read them, no, he is too honourable.

I do not know what is in them. There can be nothing, however, but nonsense, Cecilia says; yet even so, love-letters he must know they are, and a clandestine correspondence. I heard him once express such contempt for any clandestine affair. He, who is so nice, so strict, about women's conduct, how I shall sink in his esteem! Well, be it so, that concerns only myself; and it is for his own sake too, to save his happiness; and Cecilia, my dear Cecilia, oh I can bear it, and it will be a pride to me to bear it, for I am grateful; my grat.i.tude shall not be only in words; now, when I am put to the trial, I can do something for my friends. Yes, and I will, let the consequences be what they may." Yet Beauclerc! that thought was at the bottom of her heart; the fear, the almost certainty, that some way or other--every way in which she could think of it, it would lead to difficulty with Beauclerc. But this fear was mere selfishness, she thought, and to counteract it came all her generous, all her grateful, all her long-cherished, romantic love of sacrifice--a belief that she was capable of self-devotion for the friends she loved; and upon the strength of this idea she fixed at last. Quieted, she soothed herself to repose, and, worn out with reasoning or trying to reason in vain, she at last, in spite of the morning light dawning upon her through the unclosed shutters, in a soft sort of enthusiastic vision fading away, fell asleep.

She slept long; when she awoke it was with that indescribable feeling that something painful had happened--that something dreadful was to be this day. She recollected, first, that Lady Davenant was to go. Then came all that had pa.s.sed with Cecilia. It was late, she saw that her maid had been in the room, but had refrained from awakening her; she rose, and dressed as fast as she could. She was to go to Lady Davenant, when her bell rang twice. How to appear before one who knew her countenance so well, without showing that any thing had happened, was her first difficulty. She looked in her gla.s.s to see whether there was any alteration in her face; none that she could see, but she was no judge. "How foolish to think so much about it all!" She dressed, and between times inquired from her maid if she had heard of any change in Lady Davenant's intentions of going. Had any counter-orders about the carriage been given? None; it was ordered to be at the door by twelve o'clock. "That was well," Helen said to herself. It would all soon be over. Lady Davenant would be safe, then she could bear all the rest; next she hoped, that any perturbation or extraordinary emotion in herself would not be observed in the hurry of departure, or would be thought natural at parting with Lady Davenant. "So then, I come at every turn to some little deceit," thought she, "and I must, I must!" and she sighed.

"It is a sad thing for you, ma'am, Lady Davenant's going away," said her maid.

Helen sighed again. "Very sad indeed." Suddenly a thought darted into her mind, that the whole danger might be avoided. A hope came that the general might not open the packet before Lady Davenant's departure, in which case Cecilia could not expect that she should abide by her promise, as it was only conditional. It had been made really on her mother's account; Cecilia had said that if once her mother was safe out of the house, she could then, and she would the very next day tell the whole to her husband. Helen sprang from under the hands of her maid as she was putting up her hair behind, and ran to Cecilia's dressing-room, but she was not there. It was now her usual time for coming, and Helen left open the door between them, that she might go to her before Felicie should be rung for. She waited impatiently, but no Cecilia came. The time, to her impatience, seemed dreadfully long. But her maid observed, that as her ladyship had not been well yesterday, it was no wonder she was later this morning than usual.

"Very true, but there is somebody coming along the gallery now, see if that is Lady Cecilia."

"No, ma'am, Mademoiselle Felicie."