“Never you mind where he is,” said the baroness.  “Write as I request.”

“Yes, mamma,” said Rose with sudden alacrity; for she had recovered her ready wit, and was prepared to write anything, being now fully resolved the letter should never go.

“Now sign my name.”  Rose complied.  “There; now fold it, and address it to his lodgings.”  Rose did so; and, rising with a cheerful air, said she would send Jacintha with it directly.

She was half across the room when her mother called her quietly back.

“No, mademoiselle,” said she sternly.  “You will give me the letter.  I can trust neither the friend of twenty years, nor the servant that stayed by me in adversity, nor the daughter I suffered for and nursed.  And why don’t I trust you?  Because you have told me A lie.”

At this word, which in its coarsest form she had never heard from those high-born lips till then, Rose cowered like a hare.

“Ay, A lie,” said the baroness.  “I saw Edouard Riviere in the park but yesterday.  I saw him.  My old eyes are feeble, but they are not deceitful.  I saw him.  Send my breakfast to my own room.  I come of an ancient race:  I could not sit with liars; I should forget courtesy; you would see in my face how thoroughly I scorn you all.”  And she went haughtily out with the letter in her hand.

Rose for the first time, was prostrated.  Vain had been all this deceit; her mother was not happy; was not blinded.  Edouard might come and tell her his story.  Then no power could keep Josephine silent.  The plot was thickening; the fatal net was drawing closer and closer.

She sank with a groan into a chair, and body and spirit alike succumbed.  But that was only for a little while.  To this prostration succeeded a feverish excitement.  She could not, would not, look Edouard in the face.  She would implore Josephine to be silent; and she herself would fly from the chateau.  But, if Josephine would not be silent?  Why, then she would go herself to Edouard, and throw herself upon his honor, and tell him the truth.  With this, she ran wildly up the stairs, and burst into Josephine’s room so suddenly, that she caught her, pale as death, on her knees, with a letter in one hand and a phial of laudanum in the other.

CHAPTER XXIV.

Josephine conveyed the phial into her bosom with wonderful rapidity and dexterity, and rose to her feet.  But Rose just saw her conceal something, and resolved to find out quietly what it was.  So she said nothing about it, but asked Josephine what on earth she was doing.

“I was praying.”

“And what is that letter?”

“A letter I have just received from Colonel Raynal.”

Rose took the letter and read it.  Raynal had written from Paris.  He was coming to Beaurepaire to stay a month, and was to arrive that very day.