’But, dearest, it is surely your duty to think of your family first.  Have we not been afflicted enough?  Why should you lay us under this fresh burden?’

’Because it ‘s better to bear all now than a life of remorse,’ answered Evan.

’But this Mr. Laxley—­I cannot pity him; he has behaved so insolently to you throughout!  Let him suffer.’

‘Lady Jocelyn,’ said Evan, ’has been unintentionally unjust to him, and after her kindness—­apart from the right or wrong—­I will not—­I can’t allow her to continue so.’

‘After her kindness!’ echoed the Countess, who had been fuming at Caroline’s weak expostulations.  ’Kindness!  Have I not done ten times for these Jocelyns what they have done for us?  O mio Deus! why, I have bestowed on them the membership for Fallow field:  I have saved her from being a convicted liar this very day.  Worse! for what would have been talked of the morals of the house, supposing the scandal.  Oh! indeed I was tempted to bring that horrid mad Captain into the house face to face with his flighty doll of a wife, as I, perhaps, should have done, acting by the dictates of my conscience.  I lied for Lady Jocelyn, and handed the man to a lawyer, who withdrew him.  And this they owe to me!  Kindness?  They have given us bed and board, as the people say.  I have repaid them for that.’

‘Pray be silent, Louisa,’ said Evan, getting up hastily, for the sick sensation Rose had experienced came over him.  His sister’s plots, her untruth, her coarseness, clung to him and seemed part of his blood.  He now had a personal desire to cut himself loose from the wretched entanglement revealed to him, whatever it cost.

‘Are you really, truly going?’ Caroline exclaimed, for he was near the door.

‘At a quarter to twelve at night!’ sneered the Countess, still imagining that he, like herself, must be partly acting.

’But, Van, is it—­dearest, think! is it manly for a brother to go and tell of his sister?  And how would it look?’

Evan smiled.  ’Is it that that makes you unhappy?  Louisa’s name will not be mentioned—­be sure of that.’

Caroline was stooping forward to him.  Her figure straightened:  ’Good Heaven, Evan! you are not going to take it on yourself?  Rose!—­she will hate you.’

‘God help me!’ he cried internally.

‘Oh, Evan, darling! consider, reflect!’ She fell on her knees, catching his hand.  ’It is worse for us that you should suffer, dearest!  Think of the dreadful meanness and baseness of what you will have to acknowledge.’

‘Yes!’ sighed the youth, and his eyes, in his extreme pain, turned to the Countess reproachfully.

‘Think, dear,’ Caroline hurried on, ’he gains nothing for whom you do this—­you lose all.  It is not your deed.  You will have to speak an untruth.  Your ideas are wrong—­wrong, I know they are.  You will have to lie.  But if you are silent, the little, little blame that may attach to us will pass away, and we shall be happy in seeing our brother happy.’