As she spoke, she sank again into her chair, and clasping her hands together as they rested on her knee, fixed her eyes upon the ground during a moment or two of bitter thought.

The other lady advanced toward her, and after gazing at her for a minute, she kissed her beautiful brow affectionately, saying, “Nevertheless, Caroline, he does love you.  He is a libertine by habit, Caroline, I trust not a libertine in heart; and I see in every line that he writes to you that he loves you still, and always will love you.  It is my belief, dear Caroline, that if you behave well to him now, firmly, though kindly, gently, though decidedly; if you yield nothing, either to love, or importunity, or remonstrance, but tell him that you now bid him farewell for ever if he so chooses it, and that you will never either see him, or hear from him, or write to him, till he comes openly as your husband, and gives you the same vows and assurance of future affection and good conduct that he did at first—­it is my firm conviction, I say, that the love for you which I see is still strong within him, the only good thing perhaps in his heart, will bring him back to you at last.  Passion may lead him astray, folly may get the better of reason, evil habits may rule him for a time; but the memory of your sweetness, and your beauty, and your firmness, and your gentleness, will come back upon his mind, even in the society of the gay, the light, and the profligate, and will seem like a diamond beside false stones.”

“Hush, hush, hush!” said the younger lady, blushing deeply—­“I must not hear such praises, Helen:  praises that I do not deserve.”

“Nay, my dear child, I speak but what I mean,” replied the Lady Helen—­“I say that the recollection of you and your young fresh beauty, and your generous mind, will return to his remembrance, my Caroline, at all times and in all circumstances, even the most opposite:  in the midst of various enjoyments, in the heated revel, and in the idle pageant; when lonely in his chamber, when suffering distress, or pain, or illness; amidst the reverses and the strife, as well as in the prosperity and the vanities, of the world, he will remember you and love you still.  That memory will be to him as a sweet tune that we have loved in our youth, the recollection of which brings with it always visions of the only joys that we have known without alloy.  But still, remember, Caroline, that the condition on which this is to be obtained, the condition on which his recollection of you is to be, as it were, a precious antidote to the evils of his heart, is, that you now act towards him with firmness and with dignity.”

“But suppose, dear lady,” said the other, “that he were to ask me to remain with him, still concealing our marriage.  Nay, look not terrified—­I am not going to do it.  I have told you how I am going to act, and, on my honour, I will keep to my determination.  I only ask you what you think would then be the consequences?”