“Percy, had you a real cause for writing to my father as you did some few weeks ago, or was it rumour alone which actuated your doing so?  I implore you to answer me truly.”

“I had all-sufficient cause,” he answered, instantly.  “It was from no rumour.  Do you think that, without good reason, I would have endeavoured to traduce the character of any man?”

“And what was that cause?  Why did you implore my father, as he valued my future peace, not to expose me to his fascinations?”

Caroline spoke slowly and deliberately, as if every word were weighed ere it was uttered, but with an expression on her features, as if life and peace depended on his answer.

Percy looked earnestly at her.

“Why should you ask this question, my dear sister?” he said.  “If I answer it, what good will it do?  Why should I solve a mystery, that, if you love this Alphingham, as this extreme depression bids me believe, must bring but increase of pain?”

“Percy,” replied Caroline, raising her head, and standing with returning dignity before him, “Percy, do not let the idea of my love bid you hesitate.  Increase of pain I do not think is possible; but yet, do not mistake me, that pain does not spring from disappointed affection.  Percy, I do not love Lord Alphingham; I have been fascinated, and the remembrance of the past still clings to me with remorse and suffering; but I never loved him as, had I not been infatuated and blind, had I not rejected the counsels and confidence of my mother, I might have loved another.  You know not how I have been led on, how I have permitted myself to be but a tool in the hands of those whose independence I admired, and aided them by my own reckless folly—­the wish to prove, however differently I was educated, still I could act with equal spirit.  Had it not been for that self-will, that perverse spirit, I might now have been a happy and a virtuous wife, loving and esteeming that superior being, whose affections I wilfully cast away; but that matters not now,” she added, hurriedly.  “My mother was right, I was unworthy to share his lot; but of this rest assured, I do not love, I never have loved, for I cannot esteem Lord Alphingham.”

“But why then wish to know more concerning him?” Percy said, much relieved by his sister’s words, and more pleased than he chose to appear by her allusion to St. Eval.  “Is it not enough your connection with him is entirely broken off?”

“No, Percy; I have rejected him, dissolved our engagement, I scarcely know wherefore, except that I felt I could not be his without my father’s consent; but there are times I feel as if I had treated him unjustly, that I have had no cause to think ill of him; my conduct had encouraged him.  To me he has been devoted and respectful, and though I could not, would not be his wife, yet these thoughts linger on my mind, and add most painfully to the chaos already there.”

Twice Percy slowly traversed the room, with a countenance on which anxious thought was deeply imprinted.  He paused opposite to Caroline, took both her hands in his, and spoke in a voice which, though low, was so solemn that it thrilled to her inmost soul.