you know, there was no course open to a man of honour but to offer marriage and make a lady of her. I proposed; she accepted me, and here I am, eternally tied to this accurst insignia, if I’m to keep my promise! Isn’t that a sacrifice, friend H.? There’s no course open to me. The poor girl is madly in love. She called me a ‘rattle!’ As a gentleman, I cannot recede—ha! ha! I must carry on my suit! I must be tied to tin! Think I’m merry, if you like, but I doubt an thou’dst be capable of sacrifice so vast! I doubt it indeed!”
Evan got up and burst into laughter at this burlesque of himself. Telling Jack the service he required of him, and receiving a groaning assurance that the letter should, without loss of time, be delivered in proper style, the egotist, as Jack heartily thought him, fell behind his knitted brows, and, after musing abstractedly, went forth to light upon his fate.
But a dread of meeting had seized both Rose and Evan. She had exhausted her first sincerity of unbelief in her interview with Juliana: and he had begun to consider what he could say to her. More than the three words “I did it,” would not be possible; and if she made him repeat them, facing her truthful eyes, would he be man enough to strike her bared heart twice? And, ah! the sullen brute he must seem, standing before her dumb, hearing her sigh, seeing her wretched effort not to show how unwillingly her kind spirit despised him. The reason for the act—she would ask for that! Rose would not be so philosophic as her mother. She would grasp at every chance to excuse the deed. He cried out against his scheming sister in an agony, and while he did so, encountered Miss Carrington and Miss Bonner in deep converse. Juliana pinched her arm, whereupon Miss Carrington said: “You look merry this morning, Mr. Harrington:” for he was unawares smiling at the image of himself in the mirror of John Raikes. That smile, transformed to a chuckling grimace, travelled to Rose before they met.
Why did she not come to him?
A soft voice at his elbow made his blood stop. It was Caroline. She kissed him, answering his greeting: “Is it good morning?”
“Certainly,” said he. “By the way, don’t forget that the coach leaves early.”
“My darling Evan! you make me so happy. For it was really a mistaken sense of honour. For what can at all excuse a falsehood, you know, Evan!”
Caroline took his arm, and led him into the sun, watching his face at times. Presently she said: “I want just to be assured that you thought more wisely than when you left us last night.”
“More wisely?” Evan turned to her with a playful smile.
“My dear brother! you did not do what you said you would do?”
“Have you ever known me not do what I said I would do?”
“Evan! Good Heaven! you did it? Then how can you remain here an instant? Oh, no, no!—say no, darling!”
“Where is Louisa?” he inquired.
“She is in her room. She will never appear at breakfast, if she knows this.”
“Perhaps more solitude would do her good,” said Evan.
“Remember, if this should prove true, think how you punish her!”
On that point Evan had his own opinion.
“Well, I shall never have to punish you in this way, my love,” he said fondly, and Caroline dropped her eyelids.
“Don’t think that I am blaming her,” he added, trying to feel as honestly as he spoke. “I was mad to come here. I see it all now. Let us keep to our place. We are all the same before God till we disgrace ourselves.”
Possibly with that sense of shame which some young people have who are not professors of sounding sentences, or affected by missionary zeal, when they venture to breathe the holy name, Evan blushed, and walked on humbly silent. Caroline murmured: “Yes, yes! oh, brother!” and her figure drew to him as if for protection. Pale she looked up.
“Shall you always love me, Evan?”
“Whom else have I to love?”
“But always—always? Under any circumstances?”
“More and more, dear. I always have, and shall. I look to you now. I have no home but in your heart now.”
She was agitated, and he spoke warmly to calm her.
The throb of deep emotion rang in her rich voice. “I will live any life to be worthy of your love, Evan,” and she wept.
To him they were words and tears without a history.
Nothing further passed between them. Caroline went to the Countess: Evan waited for Rose. The sun was getting high. The face of the stream glowed like metal. Why did she not come? She believed him guilty from the mouth of another? If so, there was something less for him to lose. And now the sacrifice he had made did whisper a tale of moral magnificence in his ears: feelings that were not his noblest stood up exalted. He waited till the warm meadow-breath floating past told that the day had settled into heat, and then he waited no more, but quietly walked into the house with the strength of one who had conquered more than human scorn.
CHAPTER XXXVII. THE RETREAT FROM BECKLEY.
Never would the Countess believe that brother of hers, idiot as by nature he might be, and heir to unnumbered epithets, would so far forget what she had done for him, as to drag her through the mud for nothing: and so she told Caroline again and again, vehemently.
It was about ten minutes before the time for descending to the breakfast-table. She was dressed, and sat before the glass, smoothing her hair, and applying the contents of a pot of cold cream to her forehead between whiles. With perfect sincerity she repeated that she could not believe it. She had only trusted Evan once since their visit to Beckley; and that this once he