"Short of doing further wrong. Keep right and wrong always clear,
Eleanor. They never mean the same thing."
"Aunty, what you must think of me!"
"I think of you just now as saved from shipwreck. Many a girl has drifted on in the course you were going, without courage to get out of the current, until she has destroyed herself; and perhaps somebody else."
"I do not think I had much courage, aunt Caxton," said Eleanor blushing.
"What had you, then?"
"It was mainly my horror of marrying that man, after I found I did not love him. And yet, aunt Caxton, I do like him; and I am very, very, very sorry! It has almost seemed to me sometimes that I ought to marry him and give him what I can; and yet, if I were ready, I would rather die."
"Is your doubt settled?"
"Yes, ma'am,"—said Eleanor sadly.
"My dear, you have done wrong,—I judge, somewhat ignorantly,—but mischief can never be mended by mischief. To marry one man, preferring another, is the height of disloyalty to both him and yourself; unless you can lay the whole truth before him; and then, as I think, in most cases it would be the height of folly."
"I will write to Mr. Carlisle to-morrow."