I am not defending myself; of course all this should have been without effect on me. But I had loved her so dearly! I do love her still so dearly! Love like that does not die. When she left me it was natural that I should seek someone else to love. When she returned to me—when I found that in spite of her faults she had loved me through it all, I—I yielded and became false and a traitor.
I say that I love her still; but I know well that Florence is far the nobler woman of the two. Florence never could have done what she did. In nature, in mind, in acquirement, in heart, Florence is the better. The man who marries Florence must be happy if any woman can make a man happy. Of her of whom I am now speaking, I know well that I cannot say that. How then, you will ask, can I be fool enough, having had such a choice, to doubt between the two! How is it that man doubts between vice and virtue, between honour and dishonour, between heaven and hell?
But all this is nothing to you. I do not know whether Florence would take me now. I am well aware that I have no right to expect that she should. But if I understood you aright this evening, she, as yet, has heard nothing of all this. What must she think of me for not writing to her! But I could not bring myself to write in a false spirit; and how could I tell her all that I have now told to you?
I know that you wish that our engagement should go on. Dear Mrs. Burton, I love you so dearly for wishing it! Mr. Burton, when he shall have heard everything, will, I fear, think differently. For me, I feel that I must see Lady Ongar before I can again go to your house, and I write now chiefly to tell you that this is what I have determined to do. I believe she is now away, in the Isle of Wight, but I will see her as soon as she returns. After that I will either come to Onslow Crescent or send. Florence will be with you then. She of course must know everything, and you have my permission to show this letter to her if you think well to do so.—Most sincerely and affectionately yours,
This he delivered himself the next morning at the door in Onslow Crescent, taking care not to be there till after Theodore Burton should have gone from home. He left a card also, so that it might be known, not only that he had brought it himself, but that he had intended Mrs. Burton to be aware of that fact. Then he went and wandered about, and passed his day in misery, as such men do when they are thoroughly discontented with their own conduct. This was the Saturday on which Lady Ongar returned with her Sophie from the Isle of Wight; but of that premature return Harry knew nothing, and therefore allowed the Sunday to pass by without going to Bolton Street. On the Monday morning he received a letter from home which made it necessary—or induced him to suppose it to be necessary, that he should go home to Clavering, at any rate for one day. This he did on the Monday, sending a line to Mrs. Burton to say whither he was gone, and that he should be back by Wednesday night or Thursday morning—and imploring her to give his love to Florence, if she would venture to do so. Mrs. Burton would know what must be his first business in London on his return, and she might be sure he would come or send to Onslow Crescent as soon as that was over.
Harry’s letter—the former and longer letter, Cecilia had read over, till she nearly knew it by heart, before her husband’s return. She well understood that he would be very hard upon Harry. He had been inclined to forgive Clavering for what had been remiss—to forgive the silence, the absence from the office, and the want of courtesy to his wife, till Harry had confessed his sin;—but he could not endure that his sister should seek the hand of a man who had declared himself to be in doubt whether he would take it, or that anyone should seek it for her, in her ignorance of all the truth. His wife, on the other hand, simply looked to Florence’s comfort and happiness. That Florence should not suffer the pang of having been deceived and rejected was all in all to Cecilia. “Of course she must know it some day,” the wife had pleaded to her husband. “He is not the man to keep anything secret. But if she is told when he has
