Then she did not dare to open the drawer, or to let him open it, and anxiously drew away his attention by pointing to a footstool which she seemed to want.
“Could not you ask me for it, my dear, without disturbing yourself? What are men made for?”
Beauclerc, after a sort of absent effort to join in quest of the footstool, had returned eagerly to the picture, and looking at it more closely, he saw the letters C.D. written in small characters in one corner; and, just as his eye turned to the other corner, Lady Cecilia, recollecting what initials were there, started up and snatched it from his hand. “Oh, Granville!” cried she, “you must not look at this picture any more till I have done something to it.” Beauclerc was trying to catch another look at it, when Cecilia cried out, “Take it, Helen! take it!” and she held it up on high, but as she held it, though she turned the face from him, she forgot, quite forgot that Colonel D’Aubigny had written his name on the back of the picture; and there it was in distinct characters such as could be plainly read at that height, “For Henry D’Aubigny.” Beauclerc saw, and gave one glance at Helen. He made no further attempt to reach the picture. Lady Cecilia, not aware of what he had seen, repeated, “Helen! Helen! why don’t you take it?—now! now!”
Helen could not stir. The general took the picture from his wife’s hand, gave it to Miss Stanley, without looking at her, and said to Lady Cecilia, “Pray keep yourself quiet, Cecilia. You have done enough, too much to-day; sit down,” said he, rolling her arm-chair close, and seating her. “Keep yourself quiet, I beg.”—“I beg,” in the tone of “I insist.”
She sat down, but catching a view of Beauclerc was alarmed by his aspect—and Helen! her head was bent down behind the harp. Lady Cecilia did not know yet distinctly what had happened. The general pressed her to lean back on the cushions which he was piling up behind her. Beauclerc made a step towards Helen, but checking himself, he turned to the ecarté table. “Those counters, after all, that we were looking for—” As he spoke he pulled open the drawer. The general with his back to him was standing before Lady Cecilia, she could not see what Beauclerc was doing, but she heard the drawer open, and cried out. “Not there, Beauclerc; no counters there—you need not look there.” But before she spoke, he had given a sudden pull to the drawer, which brought it quite out, and all the contents fell upon the floor, and there was the fatal letter, open, and the words “My dear, too dear Henry” instantly met his eyes; he looked no farther, but in that single glance the writing seemed to him to be Lady Cecilia’s, and quick his eye turned upon her. She kept perfectly quiet, and appeared to him perfectly composed. His eye then darted in search of Helen; she had sunk upon a seat behind the harp. Through the harp-strings he caught a glimpse of her face, all pale—crimsoned it grew as he advanced: she rose instantly, took up the letter, and, without speaking or looking at any one, tore it to pieces. Beauclerc in motionless astonishment. Lady Cecilia breathed again. The general’s countenance expressed “I interfere no farther.” He left the room; and Beauclerc, without another look at Helen, followed him.
For some moments after Lady Cecilia and Helen were left alone, there was a dead silence. Lady Cecilia sat with her eyes fixed upon the door through which her husband and Beauclerc had passed. She thought that Beauclerc might return; but when she found that he did not, she went to Helen, who had covered her face with her hands.
“My dearest friend,” said Lady Cecilia, “thank you! thank you!—you did the best that was possible!”
“O Cecilia!” exclaimed Helen, “to what have you exposed me?”
“How did it all happen?” continued Cecilia. “Why was not that letter burnt with the rest? How came it there? Can you tell me?”
“I do not know,” said Helen, “I cannot recollect.” But after some effort, she remembered that in the morning, while the general had been talking to her, she had in her confusion, when she took the packet, laid the picture and that letter beside her on the arm of the chair. She had, in her hurry of putting the other letters into her bag, forgotten this and the picture, and she supposed that they had fallen between the chair and the wall, and that they had been found and put into the table-drawer by one of the servants.