She still continued to move the engravings before her, but with a slower motion than before; and though her eye still rested on the plates, he might have seen, had he dared to look at her, that her mind was far away from them. He might have seen also that there was no flash of anger now in her countenance: her spirit was softer than on that evening when she had reproached him; for she had remembered that he also had been deeply injured. But she answered nothing to the request which he thus made. "You told me that I was unforgiving," he continued, "I now come to beg that you will not be unforgiving also; that is, if I have done anything that has caused you--caused you to be less happy than you might have been." "Less happy!" she said; but not with that scorn with which she had before repeated his words. "You believe, I hope, that I would wish you to be happy; that I would do anything in my power to make you so?" "There can be nothing now in your power, Mr. Bertram." And as she spoke she involuntarily put an emphasis on the now, which made her words convey much more than she had intended. "No," he said. "No. What can such a one as I do? What could I ever have done? But say that you forgive me, Lady Harcourt." "Let us both forgive," she whispered, and as she did so, she put out her hand to him. "Let us both forgive. It is all that we can do for each other." "Oh, Caroline, Caroline!" he said, speaking hardly above his breath, and with his eyes averted, but still holding her hand; or attempting to hold it, for as he spoke she withdrew it. "I was unjust to you the other night. It is so hard to be just when one is so wretched. We have been like two children who have quarrelled over their plaything, and broken it in pieces while it was yet new. We cannot put the wheels again together, or made the broken reed produce sweet sounds." "No," he said. "No, no, no. No sounds are any longer sweet. There is no music now." "But as we have both sinned, Mr. Bertram, so should we both forgive." "But I--I have nothing to forgive." "Alas, yes! and mine was the first fault. I knew that you really loved me, and--" "Loved you! Oh, Caroline!" "Hush, Mr. Bertram; not so; do not speak so. I know that you would not wrong me; I know you would not lead me into trouble--not into further trouble; into worse misery." "And I, that might have led you--no; that might have been led to such happiness! Lady Harcourt, when I think of what I have thrown away--" "Think of it not at all, Mr. Bertram." "And you; can you command your thoughts?" "Sometimes; and by practice I hope always; at any rate, I make an effort. And now, good-bye. It will be sweet to me to hear that you have forgiven me. You were very angry, you know, when you parted from me last at Littlebath." "If there be anything for me to forgive, I do forgive it with all my heart; with all my heart."