May 31.—­It has all ended—­or rather this act of the sad drama has ended—­in nothing.  He has left us.  No day for the fulfilment of the engagement with Caroline is named, my father not being the man to press any one on such a matter, or, indeed, to interfere in any way.  We two girls are, in fact, quite defenceless in a case of this kind; lovers may come when they choose, and desert when they choose; poor father is too urbane to utter a word of remonstrance or inquiry.  Moreover, as the approved of my dead mother, M. de la Feste has a sort of autocratic power with my father, who holds it unkind to her memory to have an opinion about him.  I, feeling it my duty, asked M. de la Feste at the last moment about the engagement, in a voice I could not keep firm.

‘Since the death of your mother all has been indefinite—­all!’ he said gloomily.  That was the whole.  Possibly, Wherryborne Rectory may see him no more.

June 7 .—­M. de la Feste has written—­one letter to her, one to me.  Hers could not have been very warm, for she did not brighten on reading it.  Mine was an ordinary note of friendship, filling an ordinary sheet of paper, which I handed over to Caroline when I had finished looking it through.  But there was a scrap of paper in the bottom of the envelope, which I dared not show any one.  This scrap is his real letter:  I scanned it alone in my room, trembling, hot and cold by turns.  He tells me he is very wretched; that he deplores what has happened, but was helpless.  Why did I let him see me, if only to make him faithless.  Alas, alas!

June 21 .—­My dear Caroline has lost appetite, spirits, health.  Hope deferred maketh the heart sick.  His letters to her grow colder—­if indeed he has written more than one.  He has refrained from writing again to me—­he knows it is no use.  Altogether the situation that he and she and I are in is melancholy in the extreme.  Why are human hearts so perverse?

CHAPTER VI.—­HER INGENUITY INSTIGATES HER

September 19.—­Three months of anxious care—­till at length I have taken the extreme step of writing to him.  Our chief distress has been caused by the state of poor Caroline, who, after sinking by degrees into such extreme weakness as to make it doubtful if she can ever recover full vigour, has to-day been taken much worse.  Her position is very critical.  The doctor says plainly that she is dying of a broken heart—­and that even the removal of the cause may not now restore her.  Ought I to have written to Charles sooner?  But how could I when she forbade me?  It was her pride only which instigated her, and I should not have obeyed.

Sept. 26.—­Charles has arrived and has seen her.  He is shocked, conscience-stricken, remorseful.  I have told him that he can do no good beyond cheering her by his presence.  I do not know what he thinks of proposing to her if she gets better, but he says little to her at present:  indeed he dares not:  his words agitate her dangerously.