Caroline was almost beside herself at the receipt of this letter. The
picture of Guy Darrell effacing his very life from his native land, and
destroying the last memorials of his birthright and his home--the
conviction of the influence she still retained over his bleak and
solitary existence--the experience she had already acquired that the
influence failed where she had so fondly hoped it might begin to repair
and to bless, all overpowered her with emotions of yearning tenderness
and unmitigated despair. What could she do? She could not offer
herself, again to be rejected. She could not write again, to force her
penitence upon the man who, while acknowledging his love to be
unconquered, had so resolutely refused to see, in the woman who had once
deceived his trust--the Caroline of old! Alas, if he were but under the
delusion that her pity was the substitute and not the companion of love,
how could she undeceive him? How say--how write--"Accept me, for I love
you." Caroline Montfort had no pride of rank, but she had pride of sex;
that pride had been called forth, encouraged, strengthened, throughout
all the years of her wedded life. For Guy Darrell's sake, and to him
alone, that pride she had cast away--trampled upon; such humility was due
to him. But when the humility had been once in vain, could it be
repeated--would it not be debasement? In the first experiment she had
but to bow to his reproach--in a second experiment she might have but to
endure his contempt. Yet how, with her sweet, earnest, affectionate
nature--how she longed for one more interview--one more explanation! If
chance could but bring it about; if she had but a pretext--a fair reason,
apart from any interest of her own, to be in his presence once more! But
in a few days he would have left England forever--his heart yet more
hardened in its resolves by the last sacrifice to what it had so sternly
recognised to be a due to others. Never to see him more--never to know
how much in that sacrifice he was suffering now--would perhaps suffer
more hereafter, in the reaction that follows all strain upon purpose--and