fliction from the hand of Heaven,
for having committed this action without your father's knowledge and
consent."
"Oh, Helen!" replied the other, mournfully, "you know my father was
upon the bed of death; you know that Henry was obliged to depart in
three weeks; you know that I loved him, and that if I had parted with
him then, without giving him the hand I had promised, it might have
been years before I saw him again; for then I should have had no
title to seek him as his wife, and the ports of France were not
likely to be opened to him again. Would you have had me agitate my
father at that moment? Could I refuse to be his, under such
circumstances, when I believed every word that he said, when I
thought that if he departed without being my husband, I might not
behold him for many years to come?"
"Forgive me for glancing at the past, poor child," replied her
friend--"I meant not to imply a reproach, Caroline; but all I wish is
to counsel you to firmness. Let not love get the better of your
judgment. But tell him your determination at once, and abide by it
when it is told. If you would ever obtain justice for yourself,
Caroline, now is the moment. He himself will love and respect you
more for it hereafter. He assigns no reason for farther delay; and
his letters, hitherto, have certainly suggested no motives which
could lead either your judgment or your affection to consent to that
which is degrading to yourself. I have seen enough of these things,
Caroline, and I know that they always end in misery."
"Misery!" replied the younger lady, "alas! Helen, what have I to
expect but misery? Oh, Helen, it is not that he does not openly
acknowledge our marriage, and forbids me to proclaim it--it is not
that which makes me unhappy. Heaven knows, were that all, I could
willingly go on without the acknowledgment. I could shut myself from
the day, devote myself to him alone, forswear rank, and station, and
the pleasures of affluence, for nothing but his love; so long that,
knowing I myself was virtuous, I also knew that he continued to love
me well. It is not that, Helen, it is not that; but all which I have
heard assures me, that notwithstanding every vow of amendment, of
changed life, of constant affection towards me, he is faithless to me
in a thousand instances; that his wish of longer concealment
proceeds, not from necessity, but from a libertine spirit; in short,
Helen, that I have been for a week the creature of his pleasure, but
that he never really loved me;