Page:What Will He Do With It? - Routledge - Volume 2.djvu/206

 from which every thought buds to wither--the curse to have loved and to have trusted you!"

"Merciful Heaven! can I bear this?" cried Caroline, clasping her hands to her bosom. "And is my sin so great--is it so unpardonable? Oh, if in a heart so noble, in a nature so great, mine was the unspeakable honour to inspire an affection thus enduring, must it be only--only--as a curse! Why can I not repair the past? You have not ceased to love me. Call it hate--it is love still! And now, no barrier between our lives, can I never, never again--never, now that I know I am less unworthy of you by the very anguish I feel to have so stung you--can I never again be the Caroline of old?"

"Ha, ha!" burst forth the unrelenting man, with a bitter laugh--"see the real coarseness of a woman's nature under all its fine-spun frippery! Behold these delicate creatures, that we scarcely dare to woo! how little they even comprehend the idolatry they inspire! The Caroline of old! Lo, the virgin whose hand we touched with knightly homage, whose first bashful kiss was hallowed as the gate of paradise, deserts us--sells herself at the altar--sanctifies there her very infidelity to us; and when years have passed, and a death has restored her freedom, she comes to us as if she had never pillowed her head on another's bosom, and says 'Can I not again be the Caroline of old?' We men are too rude to forgive the faithless. Where is the Caroline I loved? YOU--are--my Lady Montfort! Look round. On these turfs, you, then a child, played beside my children. They are dead, but less dead to me than you. Never dreamed I then that a creature so fair would be other than a child to my grave and matured existence. Then, if I glanced towards your future, I felt no pang to picture you grown to womanhood--another's bride. My hearth had for years been widowed, I had no thought of second nuptials. My son would live to enjoy my wealth, and realise my cherished dreams--my son was snatched from me! Who alone had the power to comfort?--who alone had the courage to steal into the darkened room where I sate mourning? sure that in her voice there would be consolation, and the sight of her sympathising tears would chide away the bitterness of mine?--who but the Caroline of old! Ah, you are weeping now. But Lady Montfort's tears have no talisman to me!