‘She has just come,’ said the porter.  ’Madame came by the very early train this morning, when Monsieur was asleep, and she requested us not to disturb him.  She is now in her room.’

Whether Caroline had seen us from the window, or overheard me, I do not know, but at that moment I heard footsteps on the bare marble stairs, and she appeared in person descending.

‘Caroline!’ I exclaimed, ‘why have you done this?’ and rushed up to her.

She did not answer; but looked down to hide her emotion, which she conquered after the lapse of a few seconds, putting on a practical tone that belied her.

‘I am just going to my husband,’ she said.  ’I have not yet seen him.  I have not been here long.’  She condescended to give no further reason for her movements, and made as if to move on.  I implored her to come into a private room where I could speak to her in confidence, but she objected.  However, the dining-room, close at hand, was quite empty at this hour, and I got her inside and closed the door.  I do not know how I began my explanation, or how I ended it, but I told her briefly and brokenly enough that the marriage was not real.

‘Not real?’ she said vacantly.

‘It is not,’ said I.  ‘You will find that it is all as I say.’

She could not believe my meaning even then.  ‘Not his wife?’ she cried.  ‘It is impossible.  What am I, then?’

I added more details, and reiterated the reason for my conduct as well as I could; but Heaven knows how very difficult I found it to feel a jot more justification for it in my own mind than she did in hers.

The revulsion of feeling, as soon as she really comprehended all, was most distressing.  After her grief had in some measure spent itself she turned against both him and me.

‘Why should have I been deceived like this?’ she demanded, with a bitter haughtiness of which I had not deemed such a tractable creature capable.  ’Do you suppose that anything could justify such an imposition?  What, O what a snare you have spread for me!’

I murmured, ‘Your life seemed to require it,’ but she did not hear me.  She sank down in a chair, covered her face, and then my father came in.  ‘O, here you are!’ he said.  ‘I could not find you.  And Caroline!’

‘And were you, papa, a party to this strange deed of kindness?’

‘To what?’ said he.

Then out it all came, and for the first time he was made acquainted with the fact that the scheme for soothing her illness, which I had sounded him upon, had been really carried out.  In a moment he sided with Caroline.  My repeated assurance that my motive was good availed less than nothing.  In a minute or two Caroline arose and went abruptly out of the room, and my father followed her, leaving me alone to my reflections.