Cecilia, though she almost
hoped, almost feared that it should be so. The figure of Mr. Western
asking with an angry voice why he had not been told did alarm her.
But he asked no such question, nor, as far as Cecilia knew, had he
heard anything of Sir Francis when the Holts passed through London.

Nor did he seem to have heard it when he came down to Exeter. At any
rate he did not say a word respecting Sir Francis. He spent the last
evening with the Holts in their own house, and Cecilia felt that he
had never before made himself so happy with her, so pleasant, and so
joyous. It had been the same during their long walk together in the
afternoon. He was so full of affairs which were his own, which were
so soon to become her own, that there was not a moment for her in
which she could tell the story. There are stories for the telling of
which a peculiar atmosphere is required, and this was one of them.
She could not interrupt him in the middle of his discourse and
say:--"Oh, by-the-bye,--there is something that I have got to say to
you." To tell the story she must tune her mind to the purpose. She
must begin it in a proper tone, and be sure that he would be ready to
hearken to it as it should be heard. She felt that the telling would
be specially difficult in that it had been put off so long. But
though she had made up her mind to tell it before she had started on
her walk, the desirable moment never came. So she again put it off,
saying that it should be done late at night when her mother had gone
to her bed. The time came when he was alone with her, sitting with
his arm around her waist, telling her of all the things she should do
for him to make his life blessed;--and how he too would endeavour to
do some little things for her in order that her life might be happy.
She would not tell it then. Though little might come of it, she could
not do it. And yet from day to day the feeling had grown upon her
that it was certainly her duty to let him know that one accident in
her life. There was no disgrace in it, no cause for anger on his
part, nor even for displeasure if it had only been told him at Rome.
He could then have taken her, or left her as he pleased. Of course
he would have taken her, and the only trouble of her life would have
been spared her. What possible reason could there have been that he
should not take her? It was not any reason of that kind which had
kept her silent. Of that she was quite confident. Indeed no