Page:What Will He Do With It? - Routledge - Volume 2.djvu/225

 And when, to her infinite amaze and mortification, Lord Montfort, before the first month of his marriage expired, took care, in the fewest possible words, to dispel her dream of governing the House, and residing in the houses of Vipont, as the lawful agent during the life-long minority to which she had condemned both the submissive Caroline and the lethargic Marquess, she hastened by letter to exculpate herself to Darrell--laid, of course, all the blame on Caroline. Alas! had not she always warned him that Caroline was not worthy of him?--him, the greatest, the best of men, &c., &c. Darrell replied by a single cut of his trenchant sarcasm--sarcasm which shore through her cushion of down and her veil of gauze like the sword of Saladin. The old Marchioness turned her back upon Mrs. Lyndsay. Lady Selina was crushingly civil. The pretty woman with pretty manners, no better off for all the misery she had occasioned, went to Rome, caught cold, and having no one to nurse her as Caroline had done, fell at last into a real consumption, and faded out of the world elegantly and spitefully, as fades a rose that still leaves its thorns behind it.

Caroline's nature grew developed and exalted by the responsibilities she had accepted, and by the purity of her grief. She submitted, as a just retribution, to the solitude and humiliation of her wedded lot; she earnestly, virtuously strove to banish from her heart every sentiment that could recall to her more of Darrell than the remorse of having darkened a life that had been to her childhood so benignant, and to her youth so confiding. As we have seen her, at the mention of Darrell's name--at the allusion to his griefs--fly to the side of her ungenial lord, though he was to her but as the owner of the name she bore,--so it was the saving impulse of a delicate, watchful conscience that kept her as honest in thought as she was irreproachable in conduct. But vainly, in summoning her intellect to the relief of her heart--vainly had she sought to find in the world friendships, companionships, that might eclipse the memory of the mind so lofty in its antique mould--so tender in its depths of unsuspected sweetness--which had been withdrawn from her existence before she could fully comprehend its rarity, or appreciate its worth.

At last she became free once more; and then she had dared thoroughly to examine into her own heart, and into