you came to The Hard last autumn. But I wouldn't suffer it, I would not
let the illness go on. I got over that. But then a second crisis occurred
soon after we came here; and I thought Henrietta's kindness opened a way
out. So I rushed about whenever and wherever she invited me to rush. But
as I told you this evening--just before we had our two dances, you
remember."

"Am I likely to forget!" Carteret murmured under his breath.

"The rushing about has not proved a success. I thought it would help to
stifle certain longings and keep me nearer to my father--more at one with
him. But it didn't, it made me neglect him. You see--you see"--the words
were dragged from her, as by active suffering and distress of mind--"I
had to choose between him and another person. One cannot serve two
masters. I choose him. His claim was the strongest in duty. And I love to
see him satisfied and peaceful. He always ranked first in everything I
felt and did ever since I can remember; and I so want him to stay first.
But I have been pulled two ways, and seem to have got all astray somehow
lately. I haven't been really true to myself any more than to him--only
frivolous and busy about silly pleasures."

"Don't let the frivolity burden your precious conscience," Carteret
comfortably told her, touched by the pathos of her self-reproach. For her
sincerity was surely, just now, unimpeachable and she a rare creature
indeed! Love, he could less than ever banish; but surely he might utterly
banish distrust and fear?--"As frivolity goes, dear witch, and greed of
pleasure, yours have been innocent enough both in amount and in quality,
heaven knows!"

"I should like to believe so--but all that's relative, isn't it? The real
wrongness of what you do, depends upon the level of rightness you start
from, I mean."

"Insatiable casuist!" Carteret tenderly laughed at her.

And with that, by common though unspoken consent, they walked
onward again.

Even while so doing, however, both were sensible that this resumption of
their homeward journey marked a period in, rather than the conclusion of,
their conversation. Some outside compelling force--so in any case it
appeared to Carteret--encompassed them. It was useless to turn and
double, indulge in gently playful digression. That force would inevitably
make them face the innermost of their own thought, their own emotion, in
the end. In obedience to which unwelcome conviction, Carteret presently
brought him