“Never, never, never!” cried Cecil, with most unusual excitement. “He told me all that concerned himself at the very first. I wish he had told me who it was. How much it would have saved! Rosamond, you know, I am sure.”
“Yes, I made Julius tell me; but indeed, Cecil, you need not mind. Never has a feeling more entirely died out.”
“Do you think I do not know that?” said Cecil. “Do you think my husband could have been my husband if he had not felt that?”
“Dear Cecil, I am so glad,” cried impulsive Rosamond; her gladness, in truth, chiefly excited by the anger that looked like love for Raymond. “I mean, I am glad you see it so, and don’t doubt him.”
“I hope we are both above that,” said Cecil. “No, it is Camilla that I want to know about. I must know whether she told me truth.”
“She told! what did she tell you?”
“That he—Raymond—had loved some one,” said Cecil in a stifled voice; “that I little knew what his love could be. I thought it had been for her sister in India. She told me that it was nobody in the country. But then we were in town.”
“Just like her!” cried Rosamond, and wondered not to be contradicted.
“Tell me how it really was!” only asked Cecil.
“As far as I know, the attachment grew up with Raymond, but it was when the brother was alive, and Sir Harry at his worst; and Mrs. Poynsett did not like it, though she gave in at last, and tried to make the best of it; but then she—Camilla—as you call her—met the old monster, Lord Tyrrell, made up a quarrel, because Mrs. Poynsett would not abdicate, and broke it off.”