d
of before!"

"What, sir, did you think that I should lie to you?"

"I thought there was some sense of shame left in you."

"Too high a sense of shame for that. I wish you could know it all. I
wish I could tell you the tone of his voice, and the look of his eye.
I wish I could tell you how my heart drooped, and all but fainted, as
I felt that he must leave me for ever. I am a married woman, and it
was needful that he should go." After this there was a slight pause,
and then she added: "Now, Sir Henry, I think you know it all. Now may
I go?"

He rose from his chair and began walking the length of the room,
backwards and forwards, with quick step. As we have before said, he
had a heart in his bosom; he had blood in his veins; he had those
feelings of a man which make the scorn of a beautiful woman so
intolerable. And then she was his wife, his property, his dependent,
his own. For a moment he forgot the Hadley money-bags, sorely as he
wanted them, and the true man spoke out with full, unabated anger.

"Brazen-faced harlot!" he exclaimed, as he passed her in his walk;
"unmitigated harlot!"

"Yes, sir," she answered, in a low tone, coming up to him as she
spoke, laying her hand upon his arm, and looking still full into his
face--looking into it with such a gaze that even he cowered before
her. "Yes, sir, I was the thing you say. When I came to you, and sold
my woman's purity for a name, a house, a place before the world--when
I gave you my hand, but could not give my heart, I was--what you have
said."

"And were doubly so when he stood here slobbering on your neck."

"No, Sir Henry, no. False to him I have been; false to my own sex;
false, very false to my own inner self; but never false to you."

"Madam, you have forgotten my honour."

"I have at any rate been able to remember my own."

They were now standing face to face; and as she said these last
words, it struck Sir Henry that it might be well to take them as a
sign of grace, and to commence from them that half-forgiveness which
would be necessary to his projects.

"You have forgotten yourself, Caroline--"

"Stop a moment, Sir Henry, and let me finish, since you will not
allow me to remain silent. I have never been false to you, I say;
and, by God's help, I never will be--"

"Well, well."

"Stop, sir, and let me speak. I have told you often that I did not
love you. I tell you so now again. I have never loved you--never
shall love you. You have cal