could. You will tell him all I have
said," she continued, rising as Mr Wentworth rose, and going after him
to the door, to impress once more upon him the necessities of the
case. "Oh, Frank, remember how much depends upon it!--everything in
the world for me, and all the children's prospects in life; and he
would be miserable himself if he were to leave us. You know he would?"
said Louisa, looking anxiously into his face, and putting her hand on
his arm. "Oh, Frank, you don't think Gerald could be happy without the
children--and me?"

The terrible thought silenced her. She stopped crying, and a kind of
tearless horror and dread came over her face. She was not very wise,
but her heart was tender and full of love in its way. What if perhaps
this life, which had gone so smoothly over her unthinking head without
any complications, should turn out to be a lie, and her happiness a
mere delusion? She could not have put her thoughts into words, but the
doubt suddenly came over her, putting a stop to all her lamentations.
If perhaps Gerald _could_ be happy without the children and herself,
what dreadful fiction had all her joy been built upon! Such an
inarticulate terror seemed to stop the very beating of her heart. It
was not a great calamity only but an overthrowal of all confidence in
life; and she shivered before it like a dumb creature piteously
beholding an approaching agony which it could not comprehend. The
utterance of her distress was arrested upon her lips,--she looked up
to her brother with an entreating look, so suddenly intensified and
grown desperate that he was startled by it. It alarmed him so much
that he turned again to lead her back to her sofa, wondering what
momentary passion it could be which had woke such a sudden world of
confused meaning in Louisa's eyes.

"You may be sure he could not," said the Curate, warmly. "Not happy,
certainly; but to men like Gerald there are things in the world
dearer than happiness," he said, after a little pause, with a sigh,
wondering to himself whether, if Lucy Wodehouse were his, his dearest
duty could make him consent to part with her. "If he thinks of such a
step, he must think of it as of martyrdom--is that a comfort to you?"
he continued, bending, in his pity and wonder, over the trembling
wife, who burst forth into fresh tears as he spoke, and forgot her
momentary horror.

"Oh, Frank, go and speak to him, and tell him how miserable I am, and
what a dreadful thing i