ingle cut of his trenchant sarcasm--sarcasm which shore
through her cushion of down and her veil of gauze like the sword of
Saladin. The old Marchioness turned her back upon Mrs. Lyndsay. Lady
Selina was crushingly civil. The pretty woman with pretty manners, no
better off for all the misery she had occasioned, went to Rome, caught
cold, and having no one to nurse her as Caroline had done, fell at
last into a real consumption, and faded out of the world elegantly and
spitefully, as fades a rose that still leaves its thorns behind it.

Caroline's nature grew developed and exalted by the responsibilities she
had accepted, and by the purity of her grief. She submitted, as a just
retribution, to the solitude and humiliation of her wedded lot; she
earnestly, virtuously strove to banish from her heart every sentiment
that could recall to her more of Darrell than the remorse of having
darkened a life that had been to her childhood so benignant, and to her
youth so confiding. As we have seen her, at the mention of Darrell's
name--at the allusion to his griefs--fly to the side of her ungenial
lord, though he was to her but as the owner of the name she bore,--so it
was the saving impulse of a delicate, watchful conscience that kept her
as honest in thought as she was irreproachable in conduct. But vainly,
in summoning her intellect to the relief of her heart--vainly had she
sought to find in the world friendships, companionships, that might
eclipse the memory of the mind so lofty in its antique mould--so tender
in its depths of unsuspected sweetness--which had been withdrawn
from her existence before she could fully comprehend its rarity, or
appreciate its worth.

At last she became free once more; and then she had dared thoroughly to
examine into her own heart, and into the nature of that hold which
the image of Darrell still retained on its remembrances. And precisely
because she was convinced that she had succeeded in preserving her old
childish affection for him free from the growth into that warm love
which would have been guilt if so encouraged, she felt the more free to
volunteer the atonement which might permit her to dedicate herself to
his remaining years. Thus, one day, after a conversation with Alban
Morley, in which Alban had spoken of Darrell as the friend, almost the
virtual guardian, of her infancy; and, alluding to a few lines just
received from him, brought vividly before Caroline the picture of
Darrell's melan