After setting down Lady Cecilia at her mother’s, the aunt and niece proceeded to the picture sale which Miss Clarendon was eager to attend, as she was in search of a pendant to a famous Berghem she possessed; and while she was considering the picture, she had the advantage of hearing a story, which seemed, indeed, to be told for the amusement of the whole room, by a party of fashionables who were standing near her:—a wonderful story of a locket, which was going about; it was variously told, but all agreed in one point—that a young married lady of high rank had never dared to appear in the World since her husband had seen this locket in her hands—it had brought out something—something which had occurred before marriage;—and here mysterious nods were interchanged.

Another version stated that the story had not yet been fully explained to the husband, that he had found the locket on the table in a room that he had suddenly entered, where he discovered her kneeling to the person in question,—“the person in question” being sometimes a woman and sometimes a man.

Then leaned forward, stretching her scraggy neck, one who had good reason to believe that the husband would soon speak out—the public would soon hear of a separation: and everybody must be satisfied that there could not be a separation without good grounds.

Miss Clarendon inquired from a gentleman near them, who the lady was with the outstretched scraggy neck—Lady Katrine Hawksby. Miss Clarendon knew her only by reputation. She did not know Miss Clarendon either by reputation or by sight; and she went on to say, she would “venture any wager that the separation would take place within a month. In short, there could be no doubt that before marriage,”—and she ended with a look which gave a death-blow to the reputation.

Exceedingly shocked, Miss Clarendon, not only from a sense of justice to Lady Cecilia, but from feeling for her brother’s honour, longed to reply in defence; but she constrained herself for once, and having been assured by Lady Cecilia that all had been confessed to her mother, she thought that Lady Davenant must be the best person to decide what should be done. She went to her house immediately, sent in word that she begged to see Lady Davenant for two or three minutes alone, was admitted; Cecilia immediately vacated the chair beside her mother’s bed, and left the room. Miss Clarendon felt some difficulty in beginning, but she forced herself to repeat all she had heard. Then Lady Davenant started up in her bed, and the colour of life spread over her face—

“Thank you, thank you, Miss Clarendon! a second time I have to thank you for an inestimable service. It is well for Cecilia that she made the whole truth known to us both—made you her friend; now we can act for her. I will have that locket from Madame de St. Cymon before the sun goes down.”

Now Lady Davenant had Madame de St. Cymon completely in her power, from her acquaintance with a disgraceful transaction which had come to her knowledge at Florence. The locket was surrendered, returned with humble assurances that Madame de St. Cymon now perfectly understood the thing in its true light, and was quite convinced it had been stolen, not given. Lady Davenant glanced over her note with scorn, and was going to throw it from her into the fire, but did not. When Miss Clarendon called upon her again that evening as she had appointed, she showed it to her, and desired that she would, when her brother arrived next day, tell him what she had heard, what Lady Davenant had done, and how the locket was now in her possession.

Some people who pretend to know, maintain that the passion of love is of such an all-engrossing nature that it swallows up every other feeling; but we who judge more justly of our kind, hold differently, and rather believe that love in generous natures imparts a strengthening power, a magnetic touch, to every good feeling. Helen was incapable of being perfectly happy while her friend was miserable; and even Beauclerc, in spite of all the suffering she had caused, could not help pitying Lady Cecilia, and he heartily wished the general could be reconciled to her; yet it was a matter in which he could not properly interfere; he did not attempt it.

Lady Davenant determined to give a breakfast to all the bridal party after the marriage. In her state of health, Helen and Cecilia remonstrated, but Lady Davenant had resolved upon it, and at last they agreed it would be better than parting at the church-door—better that she should at her own house take leave of Helen and Beauclerc, who would set out immediately after the breakfast for Thorndale.

And now equipages were finished, and wedding paraphernalia sent home—the second time that wedding-dresses had been furnished for Miss Stanley;—and never once were these looked at by the bride elect, nor even by Cecilia, but to see that all was as it should be—that seen, she sighed, and passed on.

Felicie’s ecstasies were no more to be heard: we forgot to mention that she had, before Helen’s return from Llansillen, departed, dismissed in disgrace; and happy was it for Lady Cecilia and Helen to be relieved from her jabbering, and not exposed to her spying and reporting. Nevertheless, the gloom that hung over the world above could not but be observed by the world below; it was, however, naturally accounted for by Lady Davenant’s state of health, and by the anxiety which Lady Cecilia must feel for the general, who, as it had been officially announced by Mr. Cockburn, was to set out on foreign service the day after the marriage.

Lady Cecilia, notwithstanding the bright hopefulness of her temper, and her habits of sanguine belief that all would end well in which she and her good fortune had any concern, seemed now, in this respect, to have changed her nature; and ever since her husband’s denunciations, had continued quite resigned to misery, and submissive to the fate which she thought she had deserved. She was much employed in attendance upon her mother, and thankful that she was so permitted to be. She never mentioned her husband’s name, and if she alluded to him, or to what had been decreed by him, it was with an emotion that scarcely dared to touch the point. She spoke most of her child, and seemed to look to the care of him as her only consolation. The boy had been brought from Kensington for Lady Davenant to see, and was now at her house. Cecilia once said she thought he was very like his father, and hoped that he would at least take leave of his boy at the last. To that last hour—that hour when she was to see her husband once more, when they were to meet but to part, to meet first at the wedding ceremony, and at a breakfast in a public company,—altogether painful as it must be, yet she looked forward to it with a sort of longing ardent impatience. “True, it will be dreadful, yet still—still I shall see him again, see him once again, and he cannot part with his once so dear Cecilia without some word—some look, different from his last.”

The evening before the day on which the wedding was to be, Lady Cecilia was in Lady Davenant’s room, sitting beside the bed while her mother slept. Suddenly she was startled from her still and ever the same recurring train of melancholy thoughts, by a sound which had often made her heart beat with joy—her husband’s knock; she ran to the window, opened it, and was out on the balcony in an instant. His horse was at the door, he had alighted, and was going up the steps; she leaned over the rails of the balcony, and as she leaned, a flower she wore broke off—it fell at the general’s feet: he looked up, and their eyes met. There he stood, waiting on those steps, some minutes, for an answer to his inquiry how Lady Davenant was: and when the answer was brought out by Elliott, whom, as it seemed, he had desired to see, he remounted his horse, and rode away without ever again looking up to the balcony.

Lady Davenant had awakened, and when Cecilia returned on hearing her voice, her mother, as the light from the half-open shutters shone upon her face, saw that she was in tears; she kneeled down by the side of the bed, and wept bitterly; she made her mother understand how it had been.

“Not that I hoped more, but still—still to feel it so! Oh! mother, I am bitterly punished.”

Then Lady Davenant seizing those clasped hands, and raising herself in her bed, fixed her eyes earnestly upon Cecilia, and asked,—“Would you, Cecilia—tell me, would you if it were now, this moment, in your power—would you retract your confession?”

“Retract! impossible!”

“Do you repent—regret having made it, Cecilia?”

“Repent—regret having made it. No, mother, no!” replied Cecilia firmly. “I only regret that it was not sooner made. Retract!—impossible I could wish to retract the only right thing I have done, the only thing that redeems me in my inmost soul from uttermost contempt. No! rather would I be as I am, and lose that noble heart, than hold it as I did, unworthily. There is, mother, as you said—as I feel, a sustaining—a redeeming power in truth.”

Her mother threw her arms round her.

“Come to my heart, my child, close—close to my heart Heaven bless you! You have my blessing—my thanks, Cecilia. Yes, my thanks,—for now I know—I feel, my dear daughter, that my neglect of you in childhood has been repaired. You make me forgive myself, you make me happy, you have my thanks—my blessing—my warmest blessing!”

A smile of delight was on her pale face, and tears ran down as Cecilia answered—“Oh, mother, mother! blind that I have been. Why did not I sooner know this tenderness of your heart?”

“And why, my child, did I not sooner know you? The fault was mine, the suffering has been yours,—not yours alone, though.”

“Suffer no more for me, mother, for now, after this, come what may, I can bear it. I can be happy, even if——” There she paused, and then eagerly looking into her mother’s eyes she asked,—

“What do you say, mother, about him? do you think I may hope?”

“I dare not bid you hope,” replied her mother.

“Do you bid me despair?”

“No, despair in this world is only for those who have lost their own esteem, who have no confidence in themselves, for those who cannot repent, reform, and trust. My child, you must not despair. Now leave me to myself,” continued she “Open a little more of the shutter, and put that book within my reach.”

As soon as Miss Clarendon heard that her brother had arrived in town she hastened to him, and, as Lady Davenant had desired, told him of all the reports that were in circulation, and of all that Lady Cecilia had spontaneously confided to her. Esther watched his countenance as she spoke, and observed that he listened with eager attention to the proofs of exactness in Cecilia; but he said nothing, and whatever his feelings were, his determination, she could not doubt, was still unshaken; even she did not dare to press his confidence.

Miss Clarendon reported to Lady Davenant that she had obeyed her command, and she described as nearly as she could all that she thought her brother’s countenance expressed. Lady Davenant seemed satisfied, and this night she slept, as she told Cecilia in the morning, better than she had done since she returned to England. And this was the day of trial——

The hour came, and Lady Davenant was in the church with her daughter. This marriage was to be, as described in olden times, “celebrated with all the lustre and pomp imaginable;” and so it was, for Helen’s sake, Helen, the pale bride—-

“Beautiful!” the whispers ran as she appeared, “but too pale.” Leaning on General Clarendon’s arm she was led up the aisle to the altar. He felt the tremor of her arm on his, but she looked composed and almost firm. She saw no one individual of the assembled numbers, not even Cecilia or Lady Davenant. She knelt at the altar beside him to whom she was to give her faith, and General Clarendon, in the face of all the world, proudly gave her to his ward, and she, without fear, low and distinctly pronounced the sacred vow. And as Helen rose from her knees, the sun shone out, and a ray of light was on her face, and it was lovely. Every heart said so—every heart but Lady Katrine Hawksby’s—And why do we think of her at such a moment? and why does Lady Davenant think of her at such a moment? Yet she did; she looked to see if she were present, and she bade her to the breakfast.

And now all the salutations were given and received, and all the murmur of congratulations rising, the living tide poured out of the church; and then the noise of carriages, and all drove off to Lady Davenant’s; and Lady Davenant had gone through it all so far, well. And Lady Cecilia knew that it had been; and her eyes had been upon her husband, and her heart had been full of another day when she had knelt beside him at the altar. And did he, too, think of that day? She could not tell, his countenance discovered no emotion, his eyes never once turned to the place where she stood. And she was now to see him for one hour, but one hour longer, and at a public breakfast! but still she was to see him.

And now they are all at breakfast. The attention of some was upon the bride and bridegroom; of others, on Lady Cecilia and on the general; of others, on Lady Davenant; and of many, on themselves. Lady Davenant had Beauclerc on one side, General Clarendon on the other, and her daughter opposite to him. Lady Katrine was there, with her “tristeful visage,” as Churchill justly called it, and more tristeful it presently became.

When breakfast was over, seizing her moment when conversation flagged, and when there was a pause, implying “What is to be said or done next?” Lady Davenant rose from her seat with an air of preparation, and somewhat of solemnity.—All eyes were instantly upon her. She drew out a locket, which she held up to public view; then, turning to Lady Katrine Hawksby, she said—“This bauble has been much talked of, I understand, by your ladyship, but I question whether you have ever yet seen it, or know the truth concerning it. This locket was stolen by a worthless man, given by him to a worthless woman, from whom I have obtained it; and now I give it to the person for whom it was originally destined.”

She advanced towards Helen and put it round her neck. This done, her colour flitted—her hand was suddenly pressed to her heart; yet she commanded—absolutely commanded, the paroxysm of pain. The general was at her side; her daughter, Helen, and Beauclerc, were close to her instantly. She was just able to walk: she slowly left the room—and was no more seen by the world!

She suffered herself to be carried up the steps into her own apartment by the general, who laid her on the sofa in her dressing-room. She looked round on them, and saw that all were there whom she loved; but there was an alteration in her appearance which struck them all, and most the general, who had least expected it. She held out her hand to him, and fixing her eyes upon him with deathful expression, calmly smiled, and said—“You would not believe this could be; but now you see it must be, and soon. We have no time to lose,” continued she, and moving very cautiously and feebly, she half-raised herself—“Yes,” said she, “a moment is granted to me, thank Heaven!” She rose with sudden power and threw herself on her knees at the general’s feet: it was done before he could stop her.

“For God’s sake!” cried he, “Lady Davenant!—I conjure you—-”

She would not be raised. “No,” said she, “here I die if I appeal to you in vain—to your justice, General Clarendon, to which, as far as I know none ever appealed in vain—and shall I be the first?—a mother for her child—a dying mother for your wife—for my dear Cecilia, once dear to you.”

His face was instantly covered with his hands.

“Not to your love,” continued she—“if that be gone—to your justice I appeal, and MUST be heard, if you are what I think you: if you are not, why, go—go, instantly—go, and leave your wife, innocent as she is, to be deemed guilty—Part from her, at the moment when the only fault she committed has been repaired—Throw her from you when, by the sacrifice of all that was dear to her, she has proved her truth—Yes, you know that she has spoken the whole, the perfect truth—-”

“I know it,” exclaimed he.

“Give her up to the whole world of slanderers!—destroy her character! If now her husband separate from her, her good name is lost for ever! If now her husband protect her not—-”

Her husband turned, and clasped her in his arms. Lady Davenant rose and blessed him—blessed them both: they knelt beside her, and she joined their hands.

“Now,” said she, “I give my daughter to a husband worthy of her, and she more worthy of that noble heart than when first his. Her only fault was mine—my early neglect: it is repaired—I die in peace! You make my last moments the happiest! Helen, my dearest Helen, now, and not till now, happy—perfectly happy in Love and Truth!”