During the rapid drive to the City, she arranged a thousand plans for the employment and enjoyment of the wealth which she believed herself to be now entitled to, and the bequest of which she was resolved to conceal from her husband.
When she alighted at the solicitor's door, she assumed a melancholy and solemn air, which she thought decorous under the circumstances.
The solicitor, who was an elderly man, and whose name was Wharton, received her in his private office, and politely inquired the nature of her business.
"Did you not expect a visit from Lady Cecilia Harborough this morning?" asked the frail woman.
"Lady Cecilia Harborough!" exclaimed the lawyer, his countenance assuming a severe tone the moment that name fell upon his ears. "Are you Lady Cecilia Harborough?"
"I am Lady Cecilia Harborough," was the reply.
"So young—and yet so powerful to work evil!" observed Mr. Wharton, in a musing tone, and with a sorrowful air.
"I do not understand you, sir," exclaimed Cecilia somewhat alarmed, yet affecting a haughty and offended manner.
"Do not aggravate your wickedness by means of falsehood," said the lawyer sternly. "Think you that I am a stranger to your connexion with that unhappy man who died by his own hands last night? I have known him for many years—I knew him when he was pure, honourable, and respected: I have seen him the inmate of a dungeon. The day before yesterday I was with him for the last time. He then revealed to me every particular connected with his fall. He told me how you practised your syren arts upon him—how you led him on, until he became an adulterer! He explained to me how he repented of his first weakness, and how you practised a vile—a detestable artifice, by the aid of an old hag in Golden Lane, to bring him back to your arms."
"Spare me this recital, sir, which has been so highly coloured to my prejudice," exclaimed Lady Cecilia. "I confess that I was enamoured of that unhappy man; but——"