“That’s well. It was on an understanding between Cecilia and myself on this point, that I married. Did you know this?”
“Yes,” said Helen.
“Some words,” continued the general, “once fell from Lady Davenant concerning this Colonel D’Aubigny which alarmed me. Cecilia satisfied me that her mother was mistaken. Cecilia solemnly assured me that she had never loved him.” The general paused.
Helen, conceiving that he waited for and required her opinion, replied, “So I always thought—so I often told Lady Davenant.” But at this moment recollecting the words at the beginning of that letter, “My dear, too dear Henry,” Helen’s voice faltered. The general saw her confusion, but attributed it to her own consciousness. “Had Lady Davenant not been mistaken,” resumed he, “that is to say had there ever been—as might have happened not unnaturally—had there ever been an attachment; in short, had Cecilia ever loved him, and told me so, I am convinced that such truth and candour would have satisfied me, would have increased—as I now feel—increased my esteem. I am at this moment convinced that, in spite of my declared resolution, I should in perfect confidence, have married.”
“Oh that Cecilia had but told him!” thought Helen.
“I should not, my dear Miss Stanley,” continued the general, “have thus taken up your time talking of myself, had I not an important purpose in view. I was desirous to do away in your mind the idea of my great strictness—not on my own account, but on yours, I wished to dispel this notion. Now you will no longer, I trust, apprehend that my esteem for you is diminished. I assure you I can make allowances.”
She was shocked at the idea of allowances, yet thanked him for his indulgence, and she could hardly refrain from again bursting into tears.
“Still by your agitation I see you are afraid of me,” said he, smiling.
“No indeed; not afraid of you, but shocked at what you must think of me.”
“I am not surprised, but sorry to see that the alarm I gave my poor Cecilia this morning has passed from her mind into yours. To her I must have appeared harsh: I was severe; but when I thought I had been deceived, duped, can you wonder?”