She did not refuse it, and he pressed her warmly to his heart.  There was a moment’s silence, and then his arms relaxed their hold, and he exclaimed, “Oh Heaven!”

He then drew her arm within his, and walked on with her.

“Oh, Caroline,” he said at length, “would that you did know how I love you!”

“If I did know, Sherbrooke,” she replied, “that you really did love me, it would make me far, far happier than I am.  But how can I believe it, Sherbrooke? how can I believe it?”

“Is it,” he demanded, “is it because I have asked you to conceal our marriage a little longer?  Is it for that reason that you doubt my love?  Is it for that reason that you have come over to England, risking all and everything, affecting my fate in ways that you have no idea of?  Is it for this, Caroline?”

There was a pause for several minutes, and at length she answered,—­

“Not entirely.  There may have been many reasons, Sherbrooke, joined therewith.  There were many that I stated in my letters to you.  There were others that you might have imagined.  Was it unnatural that I should wish to see my husband?  Was it unnatural I should believe that he would be glad to see me?  As I told you, the circumstances were changed; my father was dead; I had none to protect me in France; the Lady Helen was coming to England.  When she was gone, I was left quite alone.  But oh, Sherbrooke, tell me, tell me, what cause have I had to believe that you love me?  Have you not neglected me?  Have you not forgotten me?  Have you not——­”

“Never, never, Caroline!” he cried, vehemently—­“in my wildest follies, in my rashest acts, I have thought of you and loved you.  I have remembered you with affection, and with grief, and with tenderness.  Memory, sad memory, has come upon me in the midst of the maddest efforts for gaiety, and cast me into a fit of deep, anxious, sorrowful, repentant, remorseful thought, which I could not shake off:  it seemed as if some vengeful spirit seized upon me for its prey, and dinned in my ears the name of love and Caroline, till my heart was nearly broken.”

“And the moment after,” she said, “what was it, Sherbrooke, that you did?  Did you sit down and write to Caroline, to her who was giving every thought to you? or did you fly to the side of some gay coquette, to dissipate such painful thoughts in her society? or did you fly to worse, Sherbrooke?”

He was silent.  “Sherbrooke,” she added, after a time, “I wish not to reproach you.  All I wish is to justify myself, and the firm unchangeable resolution which I have been obliged to take.  I have always tried to close my ears against everything that might make me think less highly of him I love.  But tales would reach me—­tales most painful to hear; and at length I was told that you were absolutely on the eve of wedding another.”