would have to be spent away from Chillon; and her hunger for every hour
beside her brother confessed to the war going on within her, as to which
was her holier duty, the one on the line of her inclinations, or that one
pointing to luxury-choice between a battle-horse and a cushioned-chair;
between companionship with her glorious brother facing death, and
submission to a weak young nobleman claiming his husband's rights over
her. She had submitted, had forgotten his icy strangeness, had thought
him love; and hers was a breast for love, it was owned by the sobbing
rise of her breast at the thought. And she might submit again--in honour?
scorning the husband? Chillon scorned him. Yet Chillon left the decision
to her, specified his excuses. And Henrietta and Owain, Lady Arpington,
Gower Woodseer, all the world--Carinthia shuddered at the world's blank
eye on what it directs for the acquiescence of the woman. That shred of
herself she would become, she felt herself becoming it when the view of
her career beside her brother waned. The dead Rebecca living in her heart
was the only soul among her friends whose voice was her own against the
world's.

But there came a turn where she and Rebecca separated. Rebecca's
insurgent wishes taking shape of prophecy, robbed her of her friend
Owain, to present her an impossible object, that her mind could not
compass or figure. She bade Rebecca rest and let her keep the fancy of
Owain as her good ghost of a sun in the mist of a frosty morning; sweeter
to her than an image of love, though it were the very love, the love of
maidens' dreams, bursting the bud of romance, issuing its flower.
Delusive love drove away with a credulous maiden, under an English
heaven, on a coach and four, from a windy hill-top, to a crash below, and
a stunned recovery in the street of small shops, mud, rain, gloom,
language like musket-fire and the wailing wounded.

No regrets, her father had said; they unman the heart we want for
to-morrow. She kept her look forward at the dead wall Chillon had thrown
up. He did not reject her company; his prospect of it had clouded; and
there were allusions to Henrietta's loneliness. 'His Carin could do her
service by staying, if she decided that way.' Her enthusiasm dropped to
the level of life's common ground. With her sustainment gone, she beheld
herself a titled doll, and had sternly to shut her eyes on the behind
scenes, bar any shadowy approaches of womanly softness; think