The frustrated reader is now diverted a bit by the closest thing to a subplot in this short and straightforward story line: the young bride (Cecilia Holt) has a friend, Miss Francesca Altifiorla, who is sufficiently bored with the advantages of the single life that she has been espousing to Cecilia, that it becomes clear that the great secret, which of course is known to everyone except the happiest of men (Mr. George Western) is not safe. Miss Altifiorla is not proof against the wicked plans for revenge being plotted by Cecilia's first fiancé, Sir Francis Geraldine, who is smarting from having been jilted with good cause. (Instead of continuing to court his prospective bride after the engagement was made known, he took himself off to the races at New Market, saying that he would be back in a few weeks in time for the wedding, thinking that his title and relative wealth gave him such privileges. Cecilia, with more spunk than either title or wealth, thought otherwise, summarily dismissed him, and then refused to tell her friends who had jilted whom, considering it to be a private matter.)
But the mischievous Miss Altifiorla succeeds in bumping into the recently liberated Sir Francis at the railroad station and subsequently sharing a compartment sitting opposite him on the way to London. From this point, things are foreordained. In the course of giving Sir Francis an opportunity of seeking revenge by letting Mr. Western know of his previous engagement, Miss Altifiorla even has a moment of glory as a temporary fiancée of Sir Francis in her own right.
Their short-lived engagement is the entertainment highlight of the book. Miss Altifiorla sets her trap in the railroad carriage with care and skill. "You know," she said, "that Cecilia Holt was my dearest friend, and I cannot bear to hear her abused." Sir Francis squeezes her hand as they part at Waterloo, and he proceeds to write his poison pen letter to Mr. Western. Considering Miss Altifiorla to be a broadminded woman, likely to tolerate his little ways, and as likely as any to serve his eventual need for a wife, he writes a much more cautious last paragraph in a letter to her: "Don't you think that you and I know each other well enough to make a match of it? There is a question for you to answer on your own behalf, instead of blowing me up for any cruelty to Cecilia Holt. Yours ever, F. G."
Here the clever Miss Altifiorla allows herself to be faked out, and she overplays her hand. Soon, "The milliners, the haberdashers, the furriers and the bootmakers of Exeter received her communication and her orders with pleased alacrity." Unfortunately for her, Sir Francis has already become a bit bored with the wit in her frequent and lengthy love letters; he seizes upon a gossipy mention of his projected marriage in the Exeter newspaper, protests in a follow-up letter to her that he may have expressed himself so badly in his previous letter that she may have understood more than he meant; and then he leaves for the United States.
But as for the husband who has been kept in the dark, and the wife who allowed such a thing to happen: we are given such detailed insights into their backgrounds, personalities, and thoughts that such an improbable understanding begins to seem credible. He takes himself off to Dresden in a huff. (One would think that there must have been a fraternity of fictional English exiles in Dresden, the apparent destination of choice for the disaffected.) He shows all the signs of terminal stubbornness, nursing his wounded pride and making generous provisions for his disgraced wife, who, in her own pride and stubbornness, refuses all such provisions. It becomes apparent that an intervention will be required to break the stalemate, and I had wondered if Sir Francis's disenchanted friend, Dick Ross, who told Sir Francis that he was doing an evil thing, thus giving up his friendship and patronage, would be the agent of reconciliation; but it turned out to be Mr. Western's sister, Bertha Grant, who left her husband and children to make the pilgrimage to Dresden to bring her brother to his senses so he could make the right decision.
It's a short book that tells its story in 176 pages, much less space than was devoted to the similar story of mutual pride and misunderstanding in He Knew He Was Right. Both are intimate stories of marital relationships. Cecilia Holt may be a little less headstrong than Emily Rowley, but Cecilia's pride is brought out by the mischievous letter of her "most affectionate friend, Francesca Altifiorla": "What has Mr. Western said as to the story of Sir Francis Geraldine? Of course you have told him the whole, and I presume that he has pardoned that episode."
The ploy worked. On reading it, Miss Holt's immediate reaction was that she had done "nothing for which pardon had been necessary."
Cecilia's lengthy reflections go further, of course; the more she procrastinates, the more she dreads the unveiling of the secret. Nothing is off the record, as celebrities and others have demonstrated many times. The more she dithers, the more, heaven help me, I sympathize with her husband. He deserved better. But he did overreact a bit. A little toot would have been in order. Victorian to the core, he indulged in a big toot.
Trollope excelled in the nuances of familiarity between man and woman. This comes across as another variation on the theme of poor communications; "secret" is not one of the better policies.