'What has changed you?'
'I am not changed, but awakened,' said Caroline.
The Duke paced on in silence.
'Pardon me if I comprehend nothing of such a change,' he resumed. 'I asked you to sacrifice much; all that I could give in return I offered. Is it the world you fear?'
'What is the world to such as I am?'
'Can you consider it a duty to deliver yourself bound to that man again?'
'Heaven pardon me, my lord, I think of that too little!'
The Duke's next question: 'Then what can it be?' stood in his eyes.
'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.