Cecilia, without asking the advice of anyone, resolved that she would not answer the letter. She could not write without using affectionate language, and such words should never come from her till she had first been addressed with full affection by him. "Never," she had said to herself a score of times; "never!" The meaning of this had been that having been so cruelly ill-used she would do and say nothing that might be taken as evidence that she had thought herself in the wrong. She would bear it all rather than give him to understand that she did not appreciate his cruelty. She had told him of her love, and he had not vouchsafed to say a word to her in reply. It was of the injustice done to her that she complained in the words which she was constantly framing for herself; but it was the apparent want of affection which was deepest in her heart. Though he had been twice as cruel, twice as hard, she would have been less unhappy had she succeeded in drawing from him one word of affection. "What can he do for my comfort?" she said to herself again and again. "He means that if I want money I shall have it, so that he may avoid the disgrace of leaving his wife and his child unprovided for. I will not have his money, unless he also come himself." She would not even write to Lady Grant, or let her know that she had received a letter from her husband. "Oh, yes; I have heard from him. There is his letter," and she flung the document across the table to her mother. Having done so she at once left the room, so that there should be no discussion on the matter. "That there should be not a word of love in it; not a single word," she went on saying to herself. "How hard must be a man's heart, and how changeable! He certainly did love me, and now it has all gone, simply through an unworthy suspicion on his own part."