"I did not like to say it before her," he said afterwards in their own room;--and now Cecilia was able to observe that his manner was altogether altered,--"but to tell the truth that man behaved very badly to me myself. I know nothing about racing, but my cousin, poor Jack Western, did. When he died, there was some money due to him by Sir Francis, and I, as his executor, applied for it. Sir Francis answered that debts won by dead men were not payable. But Jack had been alive when he won this, and it should have been paid before. I know nothing about debts of honour as they are called, but I found out that the money should have been paid." "What was the end of it?" asked Cecilia. "I said no more about it. The money would have come into my pocket and I could afford to lose it. But Sir Francis must know what I think of the transaction, and, knowing it, ought not to talk of asking me to dinner." "But that was swindling." "For the matter of that it's all swindling as far as I can see. One strives to get the money out of another man's pocket by some juggling arrangement. For myself I cannot understand how a gentleman can condescend to wish to gain another man's money. But I leave that all alone. It is so; and when I meet a man who is on the turf as they call it, I keep my own feelings to myself. He has his own laws of conduct and I have mine. But here is a man who does not obey his own laws; and puts money in his pocket by breaking them. He can do as he pleases. It is nothing to me. But he ought not to come and call upon my wife." In this way he talked himself into a passion; but the passion was now against Sir Francis Geraldine and not against his wife. On the next morning Miss Altifiorla was despatched by an early train so that she might be able to get down to Exeter, _via_ London, early in the day. It behoved her to go to London on the route. She had things to buy and people to see, and to London she went. "Good-bye, my dear," she said, seeming to include the husband as well as the wife in the address. "I have spent a most pleasant fortnight, and have been most delighted to become acquainted with your husband. You are Cecilia Holt no longer. But it would have been sad indeed not to know him who has made you Cecilia Western." Then she put out her hand, and getting hold of that of the gentleman squeezed it with the warmest affection. But her farewell address made to Mrs. Western in her own room was quite different in its tone. "Now I am going, Cecilia," she said, "and am leaving you in the midst of terrible dangers." "I hope not," said Cecilia. "But I am. They would have been over now and passed if you would have allowed me to obey my reason, and to tell him the whole story of your former love." "Why you?" "Because I am your most intimate friend. And I think I should have told it in such a manner as to disarm his wrath." "It is out of the question. I will tell him."