me vengeful spirit seized upon me for its
prey, and dinned in my ears the name of love and Caroline, till my
heart was nearly broken."
"And the moment after," she said, "what was it, Sherbrooke, that you
did? Did you sit down and write to Caroline, to her who was giving
every thought to you? or did you fly to the side of some gay
coquette, to dissipate such painful thoughts in her society? or did
you fly to worse, Sherbrooke?"
He was silent. "Sherbrooke," she added, after a time, "I wish not to
reproach you. All I wish is to justify myself, and the firm
unchangeable resolution which I have been obliged to take. I have
always tried to close my ears against everything that might make me
think less highly of him I love. But tales would reach me--tales most
painful to hear; and at length I was told that you were absolutely on
the eve of wedding another."
"They told you false!" exclaimed Lord Sherbrooke, wildly and
vehemently--"whoever said so, lied. I have been culpable, and am
culpable, Caroline; but not to that extent. I never dreamed of
wedding her. Did I not know it could not be? But you speak of your
resolutions. Let me know what they are at once! To declare all, I
suppose! Publicly to produce the proofs of our marriage! To announce
to my father, already exasperated against me, that in this, too, I
have offended him! To call down, even upon your own head, the revenge
of a man who has never yet, in life, gone without it! To tell
all--all, in short?"
"No, no, no, Sherbrooke!" she said--"I am going to do none of all
these things. Angry and thwarted, you do not do that justice to your
wife which you ought. You speak, Sherbrooke, as if you did not know
me. I will do none of these things. You do not choose to acknowledge
me as your wife. You are angry at my having come to England. I will
not announce our marriage till the last moment. I will not publish it
till my dying hour, unless I be driven to it by some terrible
circumstance. I will return to France. I will live as the widow of a
man that I have loved. But I will never see you more, Sherbrooke; I
will never hear from you more; I will never write to you more; till
you come openly and straightforwardly to claim me as your wife in the
face of all the world. Whenever you declare me to be your wife, I
will do all the duties of a wife: I will be obedient to your will,
not alone from duty but from love; but till you do acknowledge me as
your wife, you can plead no title to such submission."
"Ah, Caroline,"