“Oh!” Caroline’s touch quivered on his arm, “Do not suppose me frivolous, ungrateful, or—or cowardly. For myself you have offered more happiness than I could have hoped for. To be allied to one so generous, I could bear anything. Yesterday you had my word: give it me back to-day!”
Very curiously the Duke gazed on her, for there was evidence of internal torture across her forehead.
“I may at least beg to know the cause for this request?”
She quelled some throbbing in her bosom. “Yes.”
He waited, and she said: “There is one—if I offended him, I could not live. If now I followed my wishes, he would lose his faith in the last creature that loves him. He is unhappy. I could bear what is called disgrace, my lord—I shudder to say it—I could sin against heaven; but I dare not do what would make him despise me.”
She was trembling violently; yet the nobleman, in his surprise, could not forbear from asking who this person might be, whose influence on her righteous actions was so strong.
“It is my brother, my lord,” she said.
Still more astonished, “Your brother!” the Duke exclaimed. “My dearest lady, I would not wound you; but is not this a delusion? We are so placed that we must speak plainly. Your brother I have reason to feel sure is quite unworthy of you.”
“Unworthy? My brother Evan? Oh! he is noble, he is the best of men!”
“And how, between yesterday and to-day, has he changed you?”