 of his DAWN to vitalize old
England, liberated him singularly from his wearing regrets and heart-sickness.
    Surely Cecilia, who judged him sincere, might be bent to join hands with him
for so good a work! She would bring riches to her husband: sufficient. He
required the ablest men of the country to write for him, and it was just that
they should be largely paid. They at least in their present public apathy would
demand it. To fight the brewers, distillers, publicans, the shopkeepers, the
parsons, the landlords, the law limpets, and also the indifferents, the logs,
the cravens and the fools, high talent was needed, and an ardour stimulated by
rates of pay outdoing the offers of the lucre-journals. A large annual outlay
would therefore be needed; possibly for as long as a quarter of a century.
Cecilia and her husband would have to live modestly. But her inheritance would
be immense. Colonel Halkett had never spent a tenth of his income. In time he
might be taught to perceive in THE DAWN the one greatly beneficent enterprise of
his day. He might: through his daughter's eyes, and the growing success of the
Journal. Benevolent and gallant old man, patriotic as he was, and kind at heart,
he might learn to see in THE DAWN a broader channel of philanthropy and chivalry
than any we have yet had a notion of in England! - a school of popular education
into the bargain.
    Beauchamp reverted to the shining curl. It could not have been clearer to
vision if it had lain under his eyes.
    Ay, that first wild life of his was dead. He had slain it. Now for the
second and sober life! Who can say? The Countess of Romfrey suggested it: -
Cecilia may have prompted him in his unknown heart to the sacrifice of a lawless
love, though he took it for simply barren iron duty. Brooding on her, he began
to fancy the victory over himself less and less a lame one: for it waxed less
and less difficult in his contemplation of it. He was looking forward instead of
back.
    Who cut off the lock? Probably Cecilia herself; and thinking at the moment
that he would see it, perhaps beg for it. The lustrous little ring of hair wound
round his heart; smiled both on its emotions and its aims; bound them in one.
    But proportionately as he grew tender to Cecilia, his consideration for
Renée increased; that became a law to him: pity nourished it, and glimpses of
self-contempt, and something like worship of
