ed, again endeavouring to smile,
"I can sympathise in your happiness, though I refuse yours in my
sadness."

"I am not quite sure whether I have sorrow or joy to impart," said Lady
Gertrude, still feelingly; for she guessed why Caroline believed she
dare not confide in her, and she hailed it as proof that she was right
in her surmise, that her brother's honourable love would not be again
rejected.

"Eugene seems bent on again quitting England, and I fear if he do, he
will not return home again. On one little circumstance depends his final
determination; my persuasions to the contrary have entirely failed."

The cheek of her companion blanched even paler than before, two or three
large tears gathered in her eyes, then slowly fell, one by one, upon her
tightly-clasped hands.

"And if you have failed, who will succeed?" she asked, with a strong
effort.

"The chosen one, whose power over the heart of St. Eval is even greater
than mine," said Lady Gertrude, steadily. "Ah, Caroline, when a man has
learned to love, the affection of a sister is of little weight."

"He does love, then," thought Caroline, and her heart swelled even to
bursting, and he goes to seek her. "And will not the being Lord St. Eval
has honoured with his love second your efforts? if she be in England,
can she wish him to quit it?" she said aloud, in answer to her friend.

"If she love him, she will not," said Lady Gertrude; "but St. Eval fears
to ask the question that decides his fate. Strange and wayward as he is,
he would rather create certain misery for himself, than undergo the
torture of being _again refused_."

For a few minutes Caroline answered not; then, with a sudden effort,
rallying her energies, she exclaimed, as if in jest--

"Why, then, does he not make you his messenger; the affection you bear
for him would endow you with an eloquence, I doubt much whether his own
would surpass."

She would have spoken more in the same strain, but the effort failed;
and turning away from Lady Gertrude's penetrating glance, which she felt
was fixed upon her, though she could not meet it, she burst into tears.

More than ever convinced of the truth of her suspicions, Lady Gertrude's
noble mind found it impossible to continue this mode of discovery any
longer. She saw that Caroline imagined not she was the being alluded to;
that not even the phrase "again refused" had startled her into
consciousness, and she felt it was unkind to distress her more.