He laughed and she smiled, and then he became overcast with his political face, and said, 'I hope--I believe--you will alter your opinion of him. Can it be an opinion when it's founded on nothing? You know really nothing of him. I have in my pocket what I believe would alter your mind about him entirely. I do think so; and I think so because I feel you would appreciate his deep sincerity and real nobleness.' 'Is it a talisman that you have, Nevil?' 'No, it's a letter.' Cecilia's cheeks took fire. 'I should so much like to read it to you,' said he. 'Do not, please,' she replied with a dash of supplication in her voice. 'Not the whole of it--an extract here and there? I want you so much to understand him.' 'I am sure I should not.' 'Let me try you!' 'Pray do not.' 'Merely to show you...' 'But, Nevil, I do not wish to understand him.' 'But you have only to listen for a few minutes, and I want you to know what good reason I have to reverence him as a teacher and a friend.' Cecilia looked at Beauchamp with wonder. A confused recollection of the contents of the letter declaimed at Mount Laurels in Captain Baskelett's absurd sing-song, surged up in her mind revoltingly. She signified a decided negative. Something of a shudder accompanied the expression of it. But he as little as any member of the Romfrey blood was framed to let the word no stand quietly opposed to him. And the no that a woman utters! It calls for wholesome tyranny. Those old, those hoar-old duellists, Yes and No, have rarely been better matched than in Beauchamp and Cecilia. For if he was obstinate in attack she had great resisting power. Twice to listen to that letter was beyond her endurance. Indeed it cast a shadow on him and disfigured him; and when, affecting to plead, he said: 'You must listen to it to please me, for my sake, Cecilia,' she answered: 'It is for your sake, Nevil, I decline to.' 'Why, what do you know of it?' he exclaimed. 'I know the kind of writing it would be.' 'How do you know it?' 'I have heard of some of Dr. Shrapnel's opinions.' 'You imagine him to be subversive, intolerant, immoral, and the rest! all that comes under your word revolutionary.' 'Possibly; but I must defend myself from hearing what I know will be certain to annoy me.' 'But he is the reverse of immoral: and I intend to read you parts of the letter to prove to you that he is not the man you would blame, but I, and that if ever I am worthier . . . worthier of you, as I hope to become, it will be owing to this admirable and good old man.' Cecilia trembled: she was touched to the quick. Yet it was not pleasant to her to be wooed obliquely, through Dr. Shrapnel. She recognized the very letter, crowned with many stamps, thick with many pages, in Beauchamp's hands.