“Jacintha!” screamed Rose angrily.

“Hush! not a word,” said the baroness.  “Why remonstrate with her?  Servants are but chameleons:  they take the color of those they serve.  Do not cry.  I wanted your confidence, not your tears, love.  There, I will not twice in one day ask you for your heart:  it would be to lower the mother, and give the daughter the pain of refusing it, and the regret, sure to come one day, of having refused it.  I will discover the meaning of it all by myself.”  She went away with a gentle sigh; and Rose was cut to the heart by her words; she resolved, whatever it might cost her and Josephine, to make a clean breast this very day.  As she was one of those who act promptly, she went instantly in search of her sister, to gain her consent, if possible.

Now, the said Josephine was in the garden walking with Camille, and uttering a wife’s tender solicitudes.

“And must you leave me? must you risk your life again so soon; the life on which mine depends?”

“My dear, that letter I received from headquarters two days ago, that inquiry whether my wound was cured.  A hint, Josephine—­a hint too broad for any soldier not to take.”

“Camille, you are very proud,” said Josephine, with an accent of reproach, and a look of approval.

“I am obliged to be.  I am the husband of the proudest woman in France.”

“Hush! not so loud:  there is Dard on the grass.”

“Dard!” muttered the soldier with a word of meaning.  “Josephine,” said he after a pause, and a little peevishly, “how much longer are we to lower our voices, and turn away our eyes from each other, and be ashamed of our happiness?”

“Five months longer, is it not?” answered Josephine quietly.

“Five months longer!”

Josephine was hurt at this, and for once was betrayed into a serious and merited remonstrance.

“Is this just?” said she.  “Think of two months ago:  yes, but two months ago, you were dying.  You doubted my love, because it could not overcome my virtue and my gratitude:  yet you might have seen it was destroying my life.  Poor Raynal, my husband, my benefactor, died.  Then I could do more for you, if not with delicacy, at least with honor; but no! words, and looks, and tender offices of love were not enough, I must give stronger proof.  Dear Camille, I have been reared in a strict school:  and perhaps none of your sex can know what it cost me to go to Frejus that day with him I love.”

“My own Josephine!”

“I made but one condition:  that you would not rob me of my mother’s respect:  to her our hasty marriage would appear monstrous, heartless.  You consented to be secretly happy for six months.  One fortnight has passed, and you are discontented again.”

“Oh, no! do not think so.  It is every word true.  I am an ungrateful villain.”

“How dare you say so? and to me!  No! but you are a man.”