ter? If so his silence to her was
almost cruel.

Up to the morning of her coming Miss Altifiorla had certainly kept
her promise. She had kept her promise though there had been twenty
little openings as to which it would have been so easy for her to
lead the way to the matter as to which her tongue longed to be
speaking. When any mention was made of baronets either married
or unmarried, of former lovers, of broken vows, or of second
engagements, Miss Altifiorla would look with a meaning glance at her
hostess. But of these glances Cecilia would apparently take no heed.
She had soon got to know that Miss Altifiorla's promise would be kept
unless she were led by some other person into an indirect breach of
it. Cecilia's life during the period was one of great agony. But
still she endured it without allowing her husband to perceive that it
was so.

Now, on the coming of Lady Grant, what steps should she take? Should
she ask her friend to be silent also to this second person or should
she presume the promise to be so extended? She could not bring
herself to make a second request. The task of doing so was too
ponderous. Miss Altifiorla's manner of receiving the request made
it such a burden that she could not submit herself to it. The woman
looked at her and spoke to her in a manner which she was obliged
to endure without seeming to endure aught that was unnatural. She
looked back to her own struggles during that evening in the bedroom,
and could see the woman as she sat struggling, in her pale pink
dressing-gown, to escape from the necessity of promising. She could
not have another such scene as that. But she thought that perhaps
with one added word the promise might be made to suffice.

When they were alone together Miss Altifiorla would constantly refer
to the Geraldine affair. This was to be expected and to be endured.
There would come an end to the fortnight and the woman would be gone.
"Do you think that Lady Grant knows?" she said, in the whisper that
had become usual to her on such occasions.

"I am sure she knows nothing about it," said Cecilia.

"How can you be sure? You do not know her and have never seen her. It
will be very odd if she has not heard."

"At any rate nothing need be said to her in this house. No hint need
be made to her either by you or me."

"I think she must have heard it. I happen to know that she has a
great correspondence. Laws! when you think of who Sir Francis is and
of the manner in