He was much moved, and was about to speak; but she held up her hand beseechingly, and said, "Let me go on—let me go on. You said it costs me little to act as I proposed to act. Think, Sherbrooke, think what it does really cost me. Even were I all selfishness, how bitter is the part that I have assigned myself to play! To pass my time in solitude, without the pleasures of youth and gaiety; debarring myself from all the advantages of an unmarried woman, yet without the name, the blessings, the station, the dignity, of a wife; voluntarily depriving myself of every sort of consolation, relinquishing even hope. But if I am not altogether selfish, Sherbrooke—and you have no cause to say I am so—if, as you know too well, there is deep, and permanent, and pure and true affection for you at the bottom of my heart, judge what the after-hours of life will be, judge what a long dreary lapse lies before me, between the present instant and the grave."
Sherbrooke was moved, and again and again he assured her that he loved her more than any other being upon earth; and the conversation continued for nearly half an hour longer. He begged her to stay with him in England, still concealing their marriage; he pressed her in every way to break her resolution; he urged her, if it were but for one week, to remain with him, in order to see whether he could not make arrangements to render their marriage public. But she remembered her resolution, and held to it firmly, and even rejected that last proposal, fearing consequences equally dangerous to herself and to him. Opposition began to make him angry; he entered not into her reasons; he saw not the strength of her motives; he spoke some harsh and unkind words, which caused her to weep, and then again he was grieved at having pained her, and kissed the tears away, and urged and argued again. Still she remained firm, however, and again he became irritated.
At the end of half an hour, both Caroline and her husband heard the sound of feet approaching them on both sides; and though it seemed that the people who were coming from the direction of Plessis's house walked lightly and with caution, yet there were evidently many of them, and Caroline became alarmed for her husband.
"The people are coming from the house, Sherbrooke," she cried—"they must not, oh, they must not find you here!"
"Why not?" he demanded, sharply.
"Oh, because they are a dangerous and a desperate set," she said—"bent, I am sure, from what I have heard, upon bloody and terrible schemes. Me they will let pass, but I fear for you—the very name of your father would be sufficient to destroy you, with them. We must part, indeed we must part!"
"And can you, Caroline," he demanded, still lingering, but speaking in a bitter and irritated tone, angry alike with himself, and her, and with the interruption—"can you hold to your cold and cruel resolution, now?"
"I can, I must, Sherbrooke," she replied,—"nothing shall shake me."
"Well, then, be it so!" he answered sharply; and turning away, walked rapidly up the lane.
Caroline stood, for a single instant, on the spot where he left her; but then all the feelings with which she had struggled during the whole of that painful conversation with her husband, seemed to break loose upon her at once, and over-power her. Her head grew giddy, a weary faintness seemed to come over her heart, and she sank, unconscious, on the ground.