‘Perhaps, dear,—­a little,’ her conceit prompted her to admit.

‘Did you write it?’

He gazed intently into her eyes, and as the question shot like a javelin, she tried ineffectually to disengage her fingers; her delusion waned; she took fright, but it was too late; he had struck the truth out of her before she could speak.  Her spirit writhed like a snake in his hold.  Innumerable things she was ready to say, and strove to; the words would not form on her lips.

‘I will be answered, Louisa.’

The stern manner he had assumed gave her no hope of eluding him.  With an inward gasp, and a sensation of nakedness altogether new to her, dismal, and alarming, she felt that she could not lie.  Like a creature forsaken of her staunchest friend, she could have flung herself to the floor.  The next instant her natural courage restored her.  She jumped up and stood at bay.

‘Yes.  I did.’

And now he was weak, and she was strong, and used her strength.

’I wrote it to save you.  Yes.  Call on your Creator, and be my judge, if you dare.  Never, never will you meet a soul more utterly devoted to you, Evan.  This Mr. Forth, this Laxley, I said, should go, because they were resolved to ruin you, and make you base.  They are gone.  The responsibility I take on myself.  Nightly—­during the remainder of my days—­I will pray for pardon.’

He raised his head to ask sombrely:  ‘Is your handwriting like Laxley’s?’

‘It seems so,’ she answered, with a pitiful sneer for one who could arrest her exaltation to inquire about minutiae.  ’Right or wrong, it is done, and if you choose to be my judge, think whether your own conscience is clear.  Why did you come here?  Why did you stay?  You have your free will,—­do you deny that?  Oh, I will take the entire blame, but you must not be a hypocrite, Van.  You know you were aware.  We had no confidences.  I was obliged to treat you like a child; but for you to pretend to suppose that roses grow in your path—­oh, that is paltry!  You are a hypocrite or an imbecile, if that is your course.’

Was he not something of the former?  The luxurious mist in which he had been living, dispersed before his sister’s bitter words, and, as she designed he should, he felt himself her accomplice.  But, again, reason struggled to enlighten him; for surely he would never have done a thing so disproportionate to the end to be gamed!  It was the unconnected action of his brain that thus advised him.  No thoroughly-fashioned, clear-spirited man conceives wickedness impossible to him:  but wickedness so largely mixed with folly, the best of us may reject as not among our temptations.  Evan, since his love had dawned, had begun to talk with his own nature, and though he knew not yet how much it would stretch or contract, he knew that he was weak and could not perform moral wonders without severe struggles.  The cynic may add, if he likes—­or without potent liquors.