"It would have been kinder to wait until you could see him, and break it gently to him. He was ill when he got your letter, and it made him worse."
"How is he?" Cecilia asked quietly, a little ashamed of not having enquired already. "It is nothing very serious, is it? Only a little influenza, he said."
"He is not dangerously ill, but he had a good deal of fever this afternoon. You will not see him for a week, I fancy. That is the reason why I am here. I want you to postpone your decision, at least until he is well and you have talked with him."
"But I have decided already. I shall take all the blame. I will tell my friends that it is all my fault."
"Is that the only answer you can give me for him?"
"Yes. What can I say? I do not love him. I never shall."
"What if something happens?"
"What?"
"Suppose that I go to him to-morrow morning, and tell him what you say, and that when I have left him there alone with his servant, as I must in the course of the day, he locks the door, and in a fit of despair puts a bullet through his head? What then?"
Cecilia leaned forward, wide-eyed and frightened.