I hardly know what he has a right to do. But he is a stern man, and
will not easily be set aside."

"But you will not desert me?"

"No; I will not desert you. But--"

"But what?"

"For your sake, Caroline, we must regard what people will say. Our
names have been mixed together; but not as cousins."

"I know, I know. But, George, you do not suppose I intended you
should live here? I was not thinking of that. I know that that may
not be."

"For myself, I shall keep my chambers in London. I shall just be able
to starve on there; and then I shall make one more attempt at the
bar."

"And I know you will succeed. You are made for success at last; I
have always felt that."

"A man must live somehow. He must have some pursuit; and that is more
within my reach than any other: otherwise I am not very anxious for
success. What is the use of it all? Of what use will it be to me
now?"

"Oh, George!"

"Well, is it not true?"

"Do not tell me that I have made shipwreck of all your fortune!"

"No; I do not say that you have done it. It was I that drove the bark
upon the rocks; I myself. But the timbers on that account are not the
less shattered."

"You should strive to throw off that feeling. You have so much before
you in the world."

"I have striven. I have thought that I could love other women. I have
told others that I did love them; but my words were false, and they
and I knew that they were false. I have endeavoured to think of other
things--of money, ambition, politics; but I can care for none of
them. If ever a man cut his own throat, I have done so."

She could not answer him at once, because she was now sobbing, and
the tears were streaming from her eyes. "And what have I done?" she
said at last. "If your happiness is shattered, what must mine be? I
sometimes think that I cannot live and bear it. With him," she added,
after another pause, "I will not live and bear it. If it comes to
that, I will die, George;" and rising from her chair, she walked
across the room, and took him sharply by the arm. "George," she said,
"you will protect me from that; I say that you will save me from
that."

"Protect you!" said he, repeating her words, and hardly daring to
look into her face. How could he protect her? how save her from the
lord she had chosen for herself? It might be easy enough for him to
comfort her now with promises; but he could not find it in his heart
to hold out promises which he could not fulfil. If