'Can you?--will you? Oh, dear Van! have you the courage? I--look at
me--you know the home I go to, and--and I think of it here as a place to
be happy in. What have our marriages done for us? Better that we had
married simple stupid men who earn their bread, and would not have been
ashamed of us! And, my dearest, it is not only that. None can tell what
our temptations are. Louisa has strength, but I feel I have none; and
though, dear, for your true interest, I would indeed sacrifice myself--
I would, Van! I would!--it is not good for you to stay,--I know it is
not. For you have Papa's sense of honour--and oh! if you should learn
to despise me, my dear brother!'

She kissed him; her nerves were agitated by strong mental excitement.
He attributed it to her recent attack of illness, but could not help
asking, while he caressed her:

'What's that? Despise you?'

It may have been that Caroline felt then, that to speak of something was
to forfeit something. A light glimmered across the dewy blue of her
beautiful eyes. Desire to breathe it to him, and have his loving aid:
the fear of forfeiting it, evil as it was to her, and at the bottom of
all, that doubt we choose to encourage of the harm in a pleasant sin
unaccomplished; these might be read in the rich dim gleam that swept like
sunlight over sea-water between breaks of clouds.

'Dear Van! do you love her so much?'

Caroline knew too well that she was shutting her own theme with iron
clasps when she once touched on Evan's.