love-suit, the
Countess had induced Caroline to continue yet awhile in the Purgatory
Beckley Court had become to her; but Evan, in speaking of Rose,
expressed a determination to leave her, and Caroline caught at it.

'Can you?--will you? Oh, dear Van! have you the courage? I--look at
me--you know the home I go to, and--and I think of it here as a place
to be happy in. What have our marriages done for us? Better that we had
married simple stupid men who earn their bread, and would not have been
ashamed of us! And, my dearest, it is not only that. None can tell what
our temptations are. Louisa has strength, but I feel I have none; and
though, dear, for your true interest, I would indeed sacrifice myself--I
would, Van! I would!--it is not good for you to stay,--I know it is
not. For you have Papa's sense of honour--and oh! if you should learn to
despise me, my dear brother!'

She kissed him; her nerves were agitated by strong mental excitement.
He attributed it to her recent attack of illness, but could not help
asking, while he caressed her:

'What's that? Despise you?'

It may have been that Caroline felt then, that to speak of something
was to forfeit something. A light glimmered across the dewy blue of her
beautiful eyes. Desire to breathe it to him, and have his loving aid:
the fear of forfeiting it, evil as it was to her, and at the bottom of
all, that doubt we choose to encourage of the harm in a pleasant sin
unaccomplished; these might be read in the rich dim gleam that swept
like sunlight over sea-water between breaks of clouds.

'Dear Van! do you love her so much?'

Caroline knew too well that she was shutting her own theme with iron
clasps when she once touched on Evan's.

Love her? Love Rose? It became an endless carol with Evan. Caroline
sighed for him from her heart.

'You know--you understand me; don't you?' he said, after a breathless
excursion of his fancy.

'I believe you love her, dear. I think I have never loved any one but my
one brother.'

His love for Rose he could pour out to Caroline; when it came to Rose's
love for him his blood thickened, and his tongue felt guilty. He must
speak to her, he said,--tell her all.

'Yes, tell her all,' echoed Caroline. 'Do, do tell her. Trust a woman
utterly if she loves you, dear. Go to her instantly.'

'Could you bear it?' said Evan. He began to think it was for the sake of
his sisters that he had hesitated.

'Bear it? bear anything rather than pe