“Oh no!” replied the other—­“oh no!  Fear not, dear lady, that I will deal with him otherwise than firmly.  But yet you know he is my husband, Helen, and I cannot refuse to obey his will, except where he requires of me a breach of higher duties.”

“Ay,” replied the Lady Helen.  “When he claims you openly as his wife, Caroline, then he has a right to command, and no one can blame you for obeying; but he must not take the whole advantage of his situation as your husband, without giving you the name and station, or suffering you to assume the character of his wife.  Let him now do you justice in these respects, or else, dear Caroline, leave him! fly from him! strive to forget him!  Look upon yourself as widowed, and try to bear your sorrow as an infliction from the hand of Heaven, for having committed this action without your father’s knowledge and consent.”

“Oh, Helen!” replied the other, mournfully, “you know my father was upon the bed of death; you know that Henry was obliged to depart in three weeks; you know that I loved him, and that if I had parted with him then, without giving him the hand I had promised, it might have been years before I saw him again; for then I should have had no title to seek him as his wife, and the ports of France were not likely to be opened to him again.  Would you have had me agitate my father at that moment?  Could I refuse to be his, under such circumstances, when I believed every word that he said, when I thought that if he departed without being my husband, I might not behold him for many years to come?”

“Forgive me for glancing at the past, poor child,” replied her friend—­“I meant not to imply a reproach, Caroline; but all I wish is to counsel you to firmness.  Let not love get the better of your judgment.  But tell him your determination at once, and abide by it when it is told.  If you would ever obtain justice for yourself, Caroline, now is the moment.  He himself will love and respect you more for it hereafter.  He assigns no reason for farther delay; and his letters, hitherto, have certainly suggested no motives which could lead either your judgment or your affection to consent to that which is degrading to yourself.  I have seen enough of these things, Caroline, and I know that they always end in misery.”

“Misery!” replied the younger lady, “alas!  Helen, what have I to expect but misery?  Oh, Helen, it is not that he does not openly acknowledge our marriage, and forbids me to proclaim it—­it is not that which makes me unhappy.  Heaven knows, were that all, I could willingly go on without the acknowledgment.  I could shut myself from the day, devote myself to him alone, forswear rank, and station, and the pleasures of affluence, for nothing but his love; so long that, knowing I myself was virtuous, I also knew that he continued to love me well.  It is not that, Helen, it is not that; but all which I have heard assures me, that notwithstanding every vow of amendment, of changed life, of constant affection towards me, he is faithless to me in a thousand instances; that his wish of longer concealment proceeds, not from necessity, but from a libertine spirit; in short, Helen, that I have been for a week the creature of his pleasure, but that he never really loved me; that his heart rested with me for an hour, and has now gone on to others.”