BOOK II.
CHAPTER
I.—[Cecil Chamberlayne to Frank Forrester]
II.—[Rose to Fanny Worsley]
III.—[Cecil is Smitten]
IV.—[Cecil Exhibits Himself]
V.—[A Trait of Julius St. John]
VI.—[Hidden Meanings]
VII.—[Mutual Self-Examination]
VIII.—[The Disadvantages of Ugliness]
X.—[The Great Commentator]
XI.—[Cecil again Writes to Frank]
XII.—[Cecil put to the Test]
XIII.—[How a Lover Vacillates]
XIV.—[Jealousy]
XV.—[The Lovers Meet]
XVI.—[The Discovery]
XVII.—[The Sacrifice]
XVIII.—[Cecil in his True Colours]
XIX.—[The Perils of One Night]
XX.—[Captain Heath Watches over Blanche]
ROSE, BLANCHE, AND VIOLET.
PROLOGUE.
1835.
It was a sultry day in July, and the sun was pouring down from a cloudless heaven intense rays upon the High-street of * * * * * The heat made the place a desert; more indeed of a desert than even High-streets of country towns usually are. There was a burnt odour in the atmosphere, arising from the scorched pavement, and rayed forth from the garish brick houses. Silence and noon-day heat reigned over the scene. The deep stillness was brought out into stronger relief by the occasional bark of a dog, or rumbling of a solitary cart.
A few human beings dotted the street, at wide intervals. There was a groom standing at the stable-yard entrance of the Royal George, indolently chewing a blade of grass. The clergyman's wife, hot, dusty, and demure, was shopping. A farmer had just dismounted from a robust white cob, which he left standing at the door of a dismal red-brick house, on the wire blinds of which was painted the word—BANK. Higher up, three ragged urchins were plotting mischief, or arranging some game. A proud young mother was dandling her infant at a shop door, as if desirous that the whole street should be aware of the important fact of her maternity—to be sure, there never was such a beautiful baby before! In the window of that shop—it was a grocer's—a large black cat was luxuriously sleeping on a bed of moist sugar, sunning herself there, too lazy even to disturb the flies which crowded to the spot.
To one who, a stranger to the place, merely cast his eyes down that street, nothing could appear more lifeless—more devoid of all human interest—more unchequered by the vicissitudes of passion. It had the calm of the desert, without the grandeur. In such a place, the current of life would seem monotonously placid; existence itself scarcely better than vegetation. It is not so, however. To those who inhabited the place, it was known that beneath the stillness a stratum of boiling lava was ever ready to burst forth. Every house was really the theatre of some sad comedy, or of some grotesque tragedy. The shop which to an unfamiliar eye was but the depository of retail goods, with John Smith as the retailer, was to an inhabitant the well-known scene of some humble heroism, or ridiculous pretension. John Smith, smirking behind his counter, is not simply an instrument of commerce; he is a husband, a father, and a citizen; he has his follies, his passions, his hopes, and his opinions; he is the object of unreckoned scandals.