"And you mean to—"
"I cannot tell—I don't know—he must do as he pleases; O it will make me wild! He must do as he pleases, for I must be wretched either way,"
"Dear Caroline—but O! how much better to be unhappy for the sake of doing right than when—"
"Yes, yes—so he said—but O! the horror. It kills me even to think of what it will be! O, Marian, Marian—"
"It will be over in time," said Marian; "but O! I am glad you have made up your mind—"
"No, I have not—at least I must, I suppose—for after what Walter said I can't go on. Walter's words would be a dagger—O! I don't know what they would be, all the rest of my life if I did. No—you and Walter must have your own way; I am too wretched already to care what becomes of inc. But he—O Marian, I never can—"
"If it is right you can," said Marian.
"You can, but you don't know what you say to me," said Caroline. "Right has never been to me what it is to you."
"Yes, indeed it has, dear Caroline, or you would not be making this struggle now. Indeed there must be strength in you, or you would have gone on without faltering."
"Walter said he should never have spoken one word after that first letter, if I had not begun," said Caroline; "but when he saw my mind misgave me, and I wanted help, he thought it his duty to come and set it all before me. O, Marian, he said dreadful things; I did not think Walter could have been so cruel. O, such things! He made me look at the Marriage Service, and say how I could answer those things; and he talked about death and the Last Day. He said it would be a presumptuous sin, and a profaning of the holy ordinance for me to come to it, knowing and thinking and feeling as I do. O what things he said! and yet he was very kind to me."