“What is all this?” cried she.
Helen threw her arms round Lady Davenant. “Let us think of you first, and only—be calm.”
Lady Davenant broke from her, and pressing forwards exclaimed, “I must see my daughter—if I have still a daughter! Cecilia!”
The general moved. Lady Cecilia, who had sunk upon a chair behind him, attempted to rise. Lady Davenant stood opposite to her; the light was now full upon her face and figure; and her mother saw how it was changed! and looking back at Helen, she said in a low, awful tone, “I see it; the black spot has spread!”
Scarcely had Lady Davenant pronounced these words, when she was seized with violent spasms. The general had but just time to save her from falling; he could not leave her. All was terror! Even her own woman, so long used to these attacks, said it was the worst she had ever seen, and for some time evidently feared it would terminate fatally. At last slowly she came to herself, but perfectly in possession of her intellects, she sat up, looked round, saw the agony in her daughter’s countenance, and holding out her hand to her, said, “Cecilia, if there is anything that I ought to know, it should be said now.” Cecilia caught her mother’s hand, and threw herself upon her knees. “Helen, Helen, stay!” cried she, “do not go, Clarendon!”
He stood leaning against the chimney-piece, motionless, while Cecilia, in a faltering voice, began; her voice gaining strength, she went on, and poured out all—even from the very beginning, that first suppression of the truth, that first cowardice, then all that followed from that one falsehood—all—even to the last degradation, when in the power, in the presence of that bad woman, her husband found and left her. She shuddered as she came to the thought of that look of his, and not daring, not having once dared while she spoke, to turn towards him, her eyes fixed upon her mother’s; but as she finished speaking, her head sank, she laid her face on the sofa beside her; she felt her mother’s arm thrown over her and she sobbed convulsively.
There was silence.
“I have still a daughter!” were the first words that broke the silence. “Not such as I might have had, but that is my own fault.”
“Oh mother!”
“I have still a daughter,” repeated Lady Davenant. “There is,” continued she, turning to General Clarendon, “there is a redeeming power in truth. She may yet be more worthy to be your wife than she has ever yet been!”