"It would have been true,—true to the letter," said Cecilia, determined that Sir Francis Geraldine's lie should not prevail at this moment. "I had done to Sir Francis just what the girl had done to your brother. I was guided by other motives and had, I think, behaved properly. Was I to tell it to him then?"
"Why not?"
"His own story, back again? I could not do it, and then, after that, from time to time the occasions have gone by. Words have been said by him which have made it impossible. Twenty times I have determined to do it, and twenty times the opportunity has been lost. I was obliged to tell this woman not to mention it in his presence."
"He must know it."
"I wish he did."
"He is a man who will not bear to be kept in the dark on such a question."
"I know it. I have read his character and I know it."
"You cannot know him as I do," said Lady Grant. "Though you are his wife you have not been so long enough to know him; how true he is, how affectionate, how honest; but yet how jealous! Were I to say that he is unforgiving I should belie him. Without many thoughts he could forgive the man who had robbed him of his fortune, or his health. But it is hard for him to forgive that which he considers to be an offence against his self-love."
"I know it all."
"The longer he is kept in the dark the deeper will be the wound. Of such a man it is impossible to say what he suspects. He will not think that you have loved him the less or that you are less true to him; but there will be something that will rankle, and which he will not endeavour to define. He is the noblest man on earth, and the most generous—till he be offended. But then he is the most bitter."