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Book, page 291 / 460 "Do not ask it--do not ask it--it is all in vain, you are wasting time." "No, no--not wasting time; and in short, Cecilia, you must do what I ask of you, for it is right; and I will not do what you ask of me, for it is wrong." "You will not!--You will not!" cried Lady Cecilia, breathless. "After all! You will not receive the packet for me! you will not let the general believe the letters to be yours! Then I am undone! You will not do it!--Then do not talk to me--do not talk to me--you do not know General Clarendon. If his jealousy were once roused, you have no idea what it would be." "If the man were alive," said Helen, "but since he is dead--" "But Clarendon would never forgive me for having loved another--" "You said you did not love him." "Nor did I ever _really_ love that man; but still Clarendon, from even seeing those letters, might think I did. The very fact of having written such letters would be destruction to me with Clarendon. You do not know Clarendon. How can I convince you it is impossible for me to tell him? At the time he first proposed for me--oh! how I loved him, and feared to lose him. One day my mother, when I was not by, said something--I do not know what, about a first love, let fall something about that hateful D'Aubigny, and the general came to me in such a state! Oh, Helen, in such a state! I thought it was all at an end. He told me he never would marry any woman on earth who had ever loved another. I told him I never had, and that was true, you know; but then I went a little beyond perhaps. I said I had never THOUGHT of anybody else, for he made such a point of that. In short, I was a coward--a fool; I little foresaw--I laughed it off, and told him that what mamma had said was all a mistake, all nonsense; that Colonel D'Aubigny was a sort of universal flirt--and that was very true, I am sure: that he had admired us both, both you and me, but you last, you most, Helen, I said." "Oh, Cecilia, how could you say so, when you knew he never cared for me in the least?"
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