med--"now I can think of marriage, _now_ I can seek
a wife."

This was no moment for her to speak. She did not speak.

"Will Caroline, who meekly hopes to be forgiven as she forgives--will
she pardon all I have made her suffer, all that long pain I have
wickedly caused her, all that sickness of body and mind she owed to me?
Will she forget what she knows of my poor ambition, my sordid schemes?
Will she let me expiate these things? Will she suffer me to prove that,
as I once deserted cruelly, trifled wantonly, injured basely, I can now
love faithfully, cherish fondly, treasure tenderly?"

His hand was in Caroline's still; a gentle pressure answered him.

"Is Caroline mine?"

"Caroline is yours."

"I will prize her. The sense of her value is here, in my heart; the
necessity for her society is blended with my life. Not more jealous
shall I be of the blood whose flow moves my pulses than of her happiness
and well-being."

"I love you, too, Robert, and will take faithful care of you."

"Will you take faithful care of me? Faithful care! As if that rose
should promise to shelter from tempest this hard gray stone! But she
_will_ care for me, in her way. These hands will be the gentle
ministrants of every comfort I can taste. I know the being I seek to
entwine with my own will bring me a solace, a charity, a purity, to
which, of myself, I am a stranger."

Suddenly Caroline was troubled; her lip quivered.

"What flutters my dove?" asked Moore, as she nestled to and then
uneasily shrank from him.

"Poor mamma! I am all mamma has. Must I leave her?"

"Do you know, I thought of that difficulty. I and 'mamma' have discussed
it."

"Tell me what you wish, what you would like, and I will consider if it
is possible to consent. But I cannot desert her, even for you. I cannot
break her heart, even for your sake."

"She was faithful when I was false--was she not? I never came near your
sick-bed, and she watched it ceaselessly."

"What must I do? Anything but leave her."

"At my wish you never shall leave her."

"She may live very near us?"

"With us--only she will have her own rooms and servant. For this she
stipulates herself."

"You know she has an income, that, with her habits, makes her quite
independent?"

"She told me that, with a gentle pride that reminded me of somebody
else."

"She is not at all interfering, and incapable of gossip."

"I know her, Cary. But if, instead of being the personification of