faint and uncertain is jarred in action, jarred in
memory, ever behind the day and in the shadow of it! Cecilia reviewed
herself: jealous, disappointed, vexed, ashamed, she had been all day a
graceless companion, a bad actress: and at the day's close she was loving
Nevil the better for what had dissatisfied, distressed, and wounded her.
She was loving him in emulation of his devotedness to another person: and
that other was a revolutionary common people's doctor! an infidel, a
traitor to his country's dearest interests! But Nevil loved him, and it
had become impossible for her not to covet the love, or to think of the
old offender without the halo cast by Nevil's attachment being upon him.
So intensely was she moved by her intertwisting reflections that in an
access of bodily fever she stood up and moved before the glass, to behold
the image of the woman who could be the victim of these childish
emotions: and no wonderful contrast struck her eyes; she appeared to
herself as poor and small as they. How could she aspire to a man like
Nevil Beauchamp? If he had made her happy by wooing her she would not
have adored him as she did now. He likes my hair, she said, smoothing it
out, and then pressing her temples, like one insane. Two minutes
afterward she was telling Rosamund her head ached less.

'This terrible Dr. Shrapnel!' Rosamund exclaimed, but reported that no
loud voices were raised in the dining-room.

Colonel Halkett came to see his daughter, full of anxiety and curiosity.
Affairs had been peaceful below, for he was ignorant of the expedition to
Bevisham. On hearing of it he frowned, questioned Cecilia as to whether
she had set foot on that man's grounds, then said: 'Ah! well, we leave
to-morrow: I must go, I have business at home; I can't delay it. I
sanctioned no calling there, nothing of the kind. From Steynham to
Bevisham? Goodness, it's rank madness. I'm not astonished you're sick and
ill.'

He waited till he was assured Cecilia had no special matter to relate,
and recommending her to drink the tea Mrs. Culling had made for her, and
then go to bed and sleep, he went down to the drawing-room, charged with
the worst form of hostility toward Nevil, the partly diplomatic.

Cecilia smiled at her father's mention of sleep. She was in the contest
of the two men, however inanimately she might be lying overhead, and the
assurance in her mind that neither of them would give ground, so similar
were they in their tenac