conductor of the electric shock.

"It chanced one day, when I was listening only as one listens to a man who
is talking at another through oneself, I did not immediately catch the
meaning, or I believe hear what the general said. Cecilia, unawares,
answered for me, and showed that she perfectly understood:--he bowed--she
blushed.

"Man is usually quicksighted to woman's blushes. But our general was not
vain, only proud; the blush he did not set down to his own account, but
very much to hers. It was a proof, he thought, of so much simplicity of
heart, so unspoiled by the world, so unlike--in short, so like the very
woman he had painted in his fancy, before he knew too much----. Lady
Cecilia was now a perfect angel. Not one word of all this did he say, but
it was understood quite as well as if it had been spoken: his lips were
firm compressed, and the whole outer man composed--frigidly cold;--yet
through all this Cecilia saw--such is woman's penetration in certain
cases--Cecilia saw what must sooner or later happen. He, still proud of his
prudence, refrained from word, look, or sigh, resolved to be impassive
till his judgment should be perfectly satisfied. At last this judgment was
perfectly satisfied; that is, he was passionately in love--fairly 'caught,'
my dear, 'in the strong toils of grace,' and he threw himself at Cecilia's
feet. She was not quite so much surprised as he expected, but more pleased
than he had ventured to hope. There was that, however, in his proud
humility, which told Cecilia there must be no trifling.

'He either fears his fate too much,
Or his deserts are small,
Who fears to put it to the touch,
To win or lose it all.'