Helen slept no more this night. When alone in the stillness of the long hours, she went over and over again all that had passed, what Cecilia had said, what she had at first thought and afterwards felt, all the persuasions by which she had been wrought upon, and, on the contrary, all the reasons by which she ought to be decided; backward and forward her mind vibrated, and its painful vacillation could not he stilled.
"What am I going to do? To tell a falsehood! That cannot be right; but in the circumstancesyet this is Cecilia's own way of palliating the fault that her mother so fears in herthat her mother trusted to me to guard her against; and now, already, even before Lady Davenant has left us, I am going to assist Cecilia in deceiving her husband, and on that very dangerous pointColone
