'It will be over in time,' said Marian; 'but O! I am glad you have made up your mind--'
'No, I have not--at least I must, I suppose--for after what Walter said I can't go on. Walter's words would be a dagger--O! I don't know what they would be, all the rest of my life if I did. No--you and Walter must have your own way; I am too wretched already to care what becomes of inc. But he--O Marian, I never can--'
'If it is right you can,' said Marian.
'You can, but you don't know what you say to me,' said Caroline. 'Right has never been to me what it is to you.'
'Yes, indeed it has, dear Caroline, or you would not be making this struggle now. Indeed there must be strength in you, or you would have gone on without faltering.'
'Walter said he should never have spoken one word after that first letter, if I had not begun,' said Caroline; 'but when he saw my mind misgave me, and I wanted help, he thought it his duty to come and set it all before me. O, Marian, he said dreadful things; I did not think Walter could have been so cruel. O, such things! He made me look at the Marriage Service, and say how I could answer those things; and he talked about death and the Last Day. He said it would be a presumptuous sin, and a profaning of the holy ordinance for me to come to it, knowing and thinking and feeling as I do. O what things he said! and yet he was very kind to me.'
'Well, and--'
'I left it all to him. I knew it would be misery, and I did not care in what way; but then, Marian, O! worse than all, he said it must be my own doing.'
'I suppose it must.'
'He said he would help me; but I was the only person who had a right to do anything! O, Marian, Marian, I wish I could die.'
'It will be over in time!' repeated Marian.
'Yes, but it will not be over. Mamma, papa, O I shall be reproached with it for ever; I shall know I have made _him_ unhappy. O would that I could begin all over again!'
'You will have comfort at last in having been strong. The greater the effort the nobler it is! O, Caroline, do only hold out nobly. It is so glorious to have something to suffer for the sake of doing right!'
'Glorious!' murmured Caroline, her desponding gaze raised to contemplate the grand head, fine brow, firm lips, and dark glancing eye, turned up for a moment in the enthusiastic spirit of self-devotion. That look, unknowing as was Marian that she wore it, penetrated into Caroline's soul, and warmed her too with the temper of martyrdom. 'Glorious;' she repeated a second time, and the tone was not so broken and hopeless as before.
'To be sure it is!' said Marian, going on with her own thoughts, 'and it is so seldom people can ever partake of it, in ever so slight a degree, in these days; I always think it so beautiful where the account is given of the Apostles' great joy when they found a persecution was really going to begin.'
'Persecution--yes, real persecution.'
'And every suffering for the sake of the truth, for conscience' sake, must partake a little of that, I suppose,' said Marian reverently.
There they were interrupted by Clara, who came to call Marian down stairs. Caroline came too, which the others had not expected. She was more calm and composed, and her headache was supposed by her mother to account for her want of spirits. She went to bed early, begging Marian to come and visit her when she came up. Marian contrived to do so as soon as possible, and found her already in bed, quiet and comfortable. 'Marian,' she said, 'I have made up my mind. Now read to me, if you please.'
She was worn out with agitation and sleeplessness, and soothed with having come to a determination, she soon fell asleep, and Marian went to her own room, wondering over the part Walter had acted, and what he
