"Too high a sense of shame for that. I wish you could know it all. I wish I could tell you the tone of his voice, and the look of his eye. I wish I could tell you how my heart drooped, and all but fainted, as I felt that he must leave me for ever. I am a married woman, and it was needful that he should go." After this there was a slight pause, and then she added: "Now, Sir Henry, I think you know it all. Now may I go?" He rose from his chair and began walking the length of the room, backwards and forwards, with quick step. As we have before said, he had a heart in his bosom; he had blood in his veins; he had those feelings of a man which make the scorn of a beautiful woman so intolerable. And then she was his wife, his property, his dependent, his own. For a moment he forgot the Hadley money-bags, sorely as he wanted them, and the true man spoke out with full, unabated anger. "Brazen-faced harlot!" he exclaimed, as he passed her in his walk; "unmitigated harlot!" "Yes, sir," she answered, in a low tone, coming up to him as she spoke, laying her hand upon his arm, and looking still full into his face--looking into it with such a gaze that even he cowered before her. "Yes, sir, I was the thing you say. When I came to you, and sold my woman's purity for a name, a house, a place before the world--when I gave you my hand, but could not give my heart, I was--what you have said." "And were doubly so when he stood here slobbering on your neck." "No, Sir Henry, no. False to him I have been; false to my own sex; false, very false to my own inner self; but never false to you." "Madam, you have forgotten my honour." "I have at any rate been able to remember my own." They were now standing face to face; and as she said these last words, it struck Sir Henry that it might be well to take them as a sign of grace, and to commence from them that half-forgiveness which would be necessary to his projects. "You have forgotten yourself, Caroline--" "Stop a moment, Sir Henry, and let me finish, since you will not allow me to remain silent. I have never been false to you, I say; and, by God's help, I never will be--" "Well, well." "Stop, sir, and let me speak. I have told you often that I did not love you. I tell you so now again. I have never loved you--never shall love you. You have called me now by a base name; and in that I have lived with you and have not loved you, I dare not say that you have called me falsely. But I will sin no more." "What is it you mean?" "I will not deserve the name again--even from you." "Nonsense; I do not understand you. You do not know what you are saying." "Yes, Sir Henry, I do know well what I am saying. It may be that I have done you some injury; if so, I regret it. God knows that you have done me much. We can neither of us now add to each other's comfort, and it will be well that we should part." "Do you mean me to understand that you intend to leave me?" "That is what I intend you to understand."