"What would I not dare for you?" said the wily woman, pressing him warmly in her snowy arms. "And now you can guess the rest—how the old woman proposed that some stratagem should be invented to bring the recreant back to my arms——"
"And you have thus blindly confided yourself—not only your secret, but mine also—to a perfect stranger? O, Cecilia—was this prudent?" exclaimed Reginald in alarm.
"Does love know prudence?" asked the lady. "But fear not: gold will seal the lips of our confidant; and better is it for her obscure dwelling to be the scene of our loves than for our caresses to be exchanged at my abode, where the intrusion of a servant at any moment——"
"True!" interrupted Reginald. "And yet upon what a fearful abyss does my reputation now seem to tremble!"
"Yours!" ejaculated Lady Cecilia, almost scornfully,—for she was resolved to put an end to these repinings on the part of her lover: "Oh! can you be so selfish as to think only of yourself? Should you be detected, you are ruined only in your profession, and not as a man—for with the man there is no dishonour in illicit love;—but if I be detected, am I not lost as a wife, and as a woman? Will not all the wrath of an avenging society light upon me? For it is upon us—upon poor woman—that contumely, and shame, and disgrace fall!"
"Forgive me, dearest Cecilia," murmured the rector, clasping the frail beauty in his arms. "I have been unjust to you—I have thought only of myself, unmindful of the immense sacrifice that is made by thee! But, forgive me, I say—and never again shall the expression of my cowardly alarms—my egotistical terrors impair our happiness! I love you—I love you, my Cecilia: Oh! heaven knows how sincerely—how madly I love you!"
"And you will love me always?" whispered Cecilia.
"Always! for ever—and ever!" answered the rector, now intoxicated—delirious with joy, and reckless of all consequences.
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