"Oh!" said Caroline, almost sharply, "we are not considering the children now; they don't count. And besides, they can always come back here."
She sat down on the broad fender stool, and pondered a moment staring into the fire.
"Really and truly I believe if you pull her up sharply, let her know you are tired of being played with, all will go well. Mrs. Lancing is a bundle of nerves—she has had so much to try her, that she is really not able at this moment of taking matters into her own hands. I think it is so natural that she should be doubtful and nervous," said Caroline; "but one thing is sure, that the longer she delays, the more difficult it will seem to her to take any definite step. She wants some one else to show her the way. That is your duty."
She looked up at him; and Haverford smiled as he looked down at her.
"Practical little person," he said; "you would have made a splendid man, Caroline."
"I mean to be a working woman," the girl answered, "and that can be just as good as being a man."
Haverford did not answer her. He stood looking into the fire for a long time in silence.
"I wish I could feel that all would work out as you say," he said, rousing himself at last; "but——" Then he said, "I know she is ill; she seems to me to be on the eve of a nervous breakdown, but any remedy I suggest seems to have no healing power for her. You cannot think how I brood over her! She is so dear to me. The first living creature that has belonged to me since I was a boy. Mrs. Brenton gave me very much the same advice as yours," he said next. "The last time I was here, she urged me strongly to take Camilla abroad at once. I have pleaded with her a dozen times to do this: in vain!"
From a long, pregnant silence he roused himself.
"Sometimes I ask myself if she would not be happier without me."