Guy Darrell out of the world of men! 'Marriage in high life.--Marquess
of Montfort-Caroline Lyndsay.' And the sun did not fall from heaven!
Vulgarest of ends to the tritest of romances! In the gay world these
things happen every day. Young ladies are privileged to give hopes to
one man--their hands to another. 'Is the sin so unpardonable?' you ask,
with ingenuous simplicity. Lady Montfort, that depends! Reflect! What
was my life before I put it into your keeping? Barren of happiness, I
grant--saddened, solitary--to myself a thing of small value. But what
was that life to others?--a thing full of warm beneficence, of active
uses, of hardy powers fitted to noble ends! In paralysing that life as
it was to others, there may be sin wider and darker than the mere
infidelity to love. And now do you dare to ask, 'Can I again be the
Caroline of old'?"

"I ask nothing--not even pardon," said the miserable woman. "I might say
something to show where you misjudge me--something that might palliate;
but no, let it be." Her accents were so drearily hopeless that Darrell
abruptly withdrew his eyes from her face, as if fearful that the sight of
her woe might weaken his resolve. She had turned mechanically back.
They walked on in gloomy silence side by side, away now from the lake--
back under the barbed thorn-tree-back by the moss-grown crag-back by the
hollow trunks, and over the fallen leaves of trees, that had defied the
storms of centuries, to drop, perhaps, brittle and sapless, some quiet
day when every wind is lulled.

The flute had ceased its music; the air had grown cold and piercing; the
little park was soon traversed; the gate came in sight, and the humble
vehicle without it. Then, involuntarily, both stopped; and on each there
came at once the consciousness that they were about to part--part, never
perhaps in this world to meet again; and, with all that had been said, so