“I haven’t slept a wink, and I find it’s the same with you,” he said, paining her with his distressed kind eyes. “I ought not to have hinted anything last night without proofs. Austin’s as unhappy as I am.”
“At what, my dear papa, at what?” cried Cecilia.
“I ride over to Steynham this morning, and I shall bring you proofs, my poor child, proofs. That foreign tangle of his...”
“You speak of Nevil, papa?”
“It’s a common scandal over London. That Frenchwoman was found at Lord Romfrey’s house; Lady Romfrey cloaked it. I believe the woman would swear black’s white to make Nevil Beauchamp appear an angel; and he’s a desperately cunning hand with women. You doubt that.”
She had shuddered slightly.
“You won’t doubt if I bring you proofs. Till I come back from Steynham, I ask you not to see him alone: not to go out to him.”
The colonel glanced at her windows.
Cecilia submitted to the request, out of breath, consenting to feel like a tutored girl, that she might conceal her guilty knowledge of what was to be seen through the windows.
“Now I’m off,” said he, and kissed her.