have been with such a lover. There would be
some truth, therefore, in so telling the story as to leave the matter
in doubt, and in doubt he resolved that he would leave it. Before
he got back to the Deanery he was, he thought, thoroughly glad that
he should have been enabled so easily to slip his neck out of the
collar.

CHAPTER III.

THE END OF THAT EPISODE.

Cecilia during the following day told no one what had occurred, nor
on the morning of the next. Indeed she did not open her mouth on
the subject till Maude Hippesley came to her. She felt that she
was doing wrong to her mother by keeping her in the dark, but she
could not bring herself to tell it. She had, as she now declared
to herself, settled the question of her future life. To live with
her mother,--and then to live alone, must be her lot. She had been
accustomed, before the coming of Sir Francis, to speak of this as
a thing certain; but then it had not been certain, had not been
probable, even to her own mind. Of course lovers would come till the
acceptable lover should be accepted. The threats of a single life
made by pretty girls with good fortunes never go for much in this
world. Then in due time the acceptable lover had come, and had been
accepted.

And to what purpose had she put him? She could not even now say of
what she accused him, having rejected him. What excuse could she
give? What answer could she allege? She was more sure than ever now
that she could not live with him as his wife. He had said words about
some former lover which were not the less painful, in that there had
been no foundation for them. There had in truth been nothing for her
to tell Sir Francis Geraldine. Out of her milk-white innocency no
confession was to be made. But what there was had all been laid bare
to him. There had been no lover,--but if there had, then there would
have been a lie told. She had said that there had been none, and he
had heard her assertion with those greedy ears which men sometimes
have for such telling. It was a comfort to him that there had been
none; and when something uncomfortable came in his way he immediately
thought that she had deceived him. She must bear with all that now.
It did not much matter, she assured herself, what he might think of
her. But for the moment she could hardly endure to think of it, much
less to talk of it. She did not know how to own to her mother that
she was simply a jilt without offering anything in excuse.