take on myself. Nightly--during the remainder of my
days--I will pray for pardon.'

He raised his head to ask sombrely: 'Is your handwriting like Laxley's?'

'It seems so,' she answered, with a pitiful sneer for one who could
arrest her exaltation to inquire about minutiae. 'Right or wrong, it
is done, and if you choose to be my judge, think whether your own
conscience is clear. Why did you come here? Why did you stay? You have
your free will,--do you deny that? Oh, I will take the entire blame,
but you must not be a hypocrite, Van. You know you were aware. We had
no confidences. I was obliged to treat you like a child; but for you to
pretend to suppose that roses grow in your path--oh, that is paltry! You
are a hypocrite or an imbecile, if that is your course.'

Was he not something of the former? The luxurious mist in which he had
been living, dispersed before his sister's bitter words, and, as she
designed he should, he felt himself her accomplice. But, again, reason
struggled to enlighten him; for surely he would never have done a thing
so disproportionate to the end to be gamed! It was the unconnected
action of his brain that thus advised him. No thoroughly-fashioned,
clear-spirited man conceives wickedness impossible to him: but
wickedness so largely mixed with folly, the best of us may reject as
not among our temptations. Evan, since his love had dawned, had begun to
talk with his own nature, and though he knew not yet how much it would
stretch or contract, he knew that he was weak and could not perform
moral wonders without severe struggles. The cynic may add, if he
likes--or without potent liquors.

Could he be his sister's judge? It is dangerous for young men to be too
good. They are so sweeping in their condemnations, so sublime in their
conceptions of excellence, and the most finished Puritan cannot out-do
their demands upon frail humanity. Evan's momentary self-examination
saved him from this, and he told the Countess, with a sort of cold
compassion, that he himself dared not blame her.

His tone was distinctly wanting in admiration of her, but she was
somewhat over-wrought, and leaned her shoulder against him, and became
immediately his affectionate, only too-zealous, sister; dearly to be
loved, to be forgiven, to be prized: and on condition of inserting
a special petition for pardon in her orisons, to live with a calm
conscience, and to be allowed to have her own way with him during the
rest of her d