‘You are talking to Evan as if he had religion,’ said the Countess, with steady sedateness.  And at that moment, from the sublimity of his pagan virtue, the young man groaned for some pure certain light to guide him:  the question whether he was about to do right made him weak.  He took Caroline’s head between his two hands, and kissed her mouth.  The act brought Rose to his senses insufferably, and she—­his Goddess of truth and his sole guiding light-spurred him afresh.

’My family’s dishonour is mine, Caroline.  Say nothing more—­don’t think of me.  I go to Lady Jocelyn tonight.  To-morrow we leave, and there’s the end.  Louisa, if you have any new schemes for my welfare, I beg you to renounce them.’

‘Gratitude I never expected from a Dawley!’ the Countess retorted.

‘Oh, Louisa! he is going!’ cried Caroline; ’kneel to him with me:  stop him:  Rose loves him, and he is going to make her hate him.’

‘You can’t talk reason to one who’s mad,’ said the Countess, more like the Dawley she sprang from than it would have pleased her to know.

‘My darling!  My own Evan! it will kill me,’ Caroline exclaimed, and passionately imploring him, she looked so hopelessly beautiful, that Evan was agitated, and caressed her, while he said, softly:  ’Where our honour is not involved I would submit to your smallest wish.’

‘It involves my life—­my destiny!’ murmured Caroline.

Could he have known the double meaning in her words, and what a saving this sacrifice of his was to accomplish, he would not have turned to do it feeling abandoned of heaven and earth.

The Countess stood rigidly as he went forth.  Caroline was on her knees, sobbing.

CHAPTER XXXIV

A PAGAN SACRIFICE

Three steps from the Countess’s chamber door, the knot of Evan’s resolution began to slacken.  The clear light of his simple duty grew cloudy and complex.  His pride would not let him think that he was shrinking, but cried out in him, ‘Will you be believed?’ and whispered that few would believe him guilty of such an act.  Yet, while something said that full surely Lady Jocelyn would not, a vague dread that Rose might, threw him back on the luxury of her love and faith in him.  He found himself hoping that his statement would be laughed at.  Then why make it?

No:  that was too blind a hope.  Many would take him at his word; all—­all save Lady Jocelyn!  Rose the first!  Because he stood so high with her now he feared the fall.  Ah, dazzling pinnacle! our darlings shoot us up on a wondrous juggler’s pole, and we talk familiarly to the stars, and are so much above everybody, and try to walk like creatures with two legs, forgetting that we have but a pin’s point to stand on up there.  Probably the absence of natural motion inspires the prophecy that we must ultimately come down:  our unused legs wax morbidly restless.  Evan thought it good that Rose should lift her head to look at him; nevertheless, he knew that Rose would turn from him the moment he descended from his superior station.  Nature is wise in her young children, though they wot not of it, and are always trying to rush away from her.  They escape their wits sooner than their instincts.