The housekeeper wished her master a good night's rest, and withdrew.
The rector then took a decanter of wine from a cupboard, and tossed off two glasses full, one immediately after the other.
The idea that Cecilia would shortly be there and the effects of the wine inflamed his blood, and brought back the colour to his cheeks.
Midnight soon sounded: the rector threw off his shoes, took a candle in his hand, and hastened down stairs.
He opened the front-door with the utmost caution; and a female, muffled in an ample cloak, darted into the hall.
"Cecilia?" whispered the rector.
"Dearest Reginald," answered the lady, in the same under tone.
They then stole noiselessly up stairs, and reached the rector's chamber without having scarcely awakened the faintest echo in the house.
The remainder of the night was passed by them in the intoxicating joys of illicit love. Locked in Cecilia's arms, the rector forgot the humiliation he had received at the hands of Ellen, and abandoned himself to those pleasures for which he risked so much!
It was still dark—though at a later hour in the morning than Cecilia had been previously in the habit of quitting the rector's house—when the guilty pair stole softly down stairs, without a light.