it over, and she raised herself on her elbow, and listened with acute impatience: at last the door was thrown wide open, and bright and gay as ever, in came Cecilia, but at the first sight of Helen on her bed, wan and miserable, she stopped short. “My dearest Helen! what can be the matter?” “Mr. Beauclerc--” “Well! what of him?” cried Cecilia, and she smiled. “Oh, Cecilia! do not smile; you cannot imagine--” “Oh, yes! but I can,” cried Cecilia. “I see how it is; I understand it all; and miserable and amazed as you look at this moment, I will set all right for you in one word. He is not going to be married--not engaged.” Helen started up. “Not engaged!” “No more than you are, my dear! Oh! I am glad to see your colour come again!” “Thank Heaven!” cried Helen, “then he is not--” “A villain!--not at all. He is all that’s right; all that is charming, my dear. So thank Heaven, and be as happy as you please.” “But I cannot understand it,” said Helen, sinking back; “I really cannot understand how it is, Cecilia.” Cecilia gave her a glass of water in great haste, and was very sorry, and very glad, and begged forgiveness, and all in a breath: but as yet Helen did not know what she had to forgive, till it was explained to her in direct words, that Cecilia had told her not only what was not true, but what she at the time of telling knew to be false. “For what purpose, oh! my dear Cecilia! All to save me from a little foolish embarrassment at first, you have made us miserable at last.” “Miserable! my dear Helen; at worst miserable only for half an hour. Nonsense! lie down again, and rest your poor head. I will go this minute to Granville. Where is he?” “Gone! Gone for ever! Those were his last words.” “Impossible! absurd! Only what a man says in a passion. But where is he gone? Only to Old Forest! Gone for ever--gone till dinner-time! Probably coming back at this moment in all haste, like a true lover, to beg your pardon for your having used him abominably ill. Now, smile; do not shake your head, and look so wretched; but tell me exactly, word for word and look for look, all that passed between you, and then I shall know what is best to be done.” Word for word Helen could not answer, for she had been so much confused, but she told to the best of her recollection; and Cecilia still thought no great harm was done. She only looked a little serious from the apprehension, now the real, true apprehension, of what might happen about Lady Blanche, who, as she believed, was at Old Forest. “Men are so foolish; men in love, so rash. Beauclerc, in a fit of anger and despair on being so refused by the woman he loved, might go and throw himself at the feet of another for whom he did not care in the least, in a strange sort of revenge. But I know how to settle it all, and I will do it this moment.”