ntinued
unceasingly; and deeply was she won by the rebellious note in all that
he said, deeply too by his disregard of the vulgar arts of wooers: she
detected none. He did not speak so much to win as to help her to see
with her own orbs. Nor was it roughly or chidingly, though it was
absolutely, that he stripped her of the veil a wavering woman will keep
to herself from her heart's lord if she can.

They arrived long after the boat at Tourdestelle, and Beauchamp might
believe he had prevailed with her, but for her forlorn repetition of
the question he had put to her idly and as a new idea, instead of
significantly, with a recollection and a doubt 'Have I courage, Nevil?'

The grain of common sense in cowardice caused her to repeat it when her
reason was bedimmed, and passion assumed the right to show the way of
right and wrong.

CHAPTER XXVI. MR. BLACKBURN TUCKHAM

Some time after Beauchamp had been seen renewing his canvass in Bevisham
a report reached Mount Laurels that he was lame of a leg. The wits of
the opposite camp revived the FRENCH MARQUEES, but it was generally
acknowledged that he had come back without the lady: she was invisible.
Cecilia Halkett rode home with her father on a dusky Autumn evening, and
found the card of Commander Beauchamp awaiting her. He might have stayed
to see her, she thought. Ladies are not customarily so very late in
returning from a ride on chill evenings of Autumn. Only a quarter of an
hour was between his visit and her return. The shortness of the interval
made it appear the deeper gulf. She noticed that her father particularly
inquired of the man-servant whether Captain Beauchamp limped. It seemed
a piece of kindly anxiety on his part. The captain was mounted, the man
said. Cecilia was conscious of rumours being abroad relating to Nevil's
expedition to France; but he had enemies, and was at war with them,
and she held herself indifferent to tattle. This card bearing his name,
recently in his hand, was much more insidious and precise. She took
it to her room to look at it. Nothing but his name and naval title was
inscribed; no pencilled line; she had not expected to discover one. The
simple card was her dark light, as a handkerchief, a flower, a knot of
riband, has been for men luridly illuminated by such small sparks to
fling their beams on shadows and read the monstrous things for truths.
Her purer virgin blood was, not inflamed. She read the signification
of the card s