“Heaven forbid!  Rose, I love no one:  I have loved; but now my heart is dead and silent; only my conscience says, ’You are the cause of all your mother’s trouble; you are the cause that Beaurepaire was sold.  Now you can repair that mischief, and at the same time make a brave man happy, our benefactor happy.’  It is a great temptation:  I hardly know why I said ‘no’ at all; surprise, perhaps—­or to please you, pretty one.”

Rose groaned:  “Are you then worth so little that you would throw yourself away on a man who does not love you, nor want you, and is quite as happy single?”

“No; not happy; he is only stout-hearted and good, and therefore content; and he is a character that it would be easy—­in short, I feel my power here:  I could make that man happy; he has nobody to write to even, when he is away—­poor fellow!”

“I shall lose all patience,” cried Rose; “you are at your old trick, thinking of everybody but yourself:  I let you do it in trifles, but I love you too well to permit it when the happiness of your whole life is at stake.  I must be satisfied on one point, or else this marriage shall never take place:  just answer me this; if Camille Dujardin stood on one side, and Monsieur Raynal on the other, and both asked your hand, which would you take?”

“That will never be.  Whose?  Not his whom I despise.  Esteem might ripen into love, but what must contempt end in?”

This reply gave Rose great satisfaction.  To exhaust all awkward contingencies, she said, “One question more, and I have done.  Suppose Camille should turn out—­be not quite—­what shall I say—­inexcusable?”

At this unlucky gush, Josephine turned pale, then red, then pale again, and cried eagerly, “Then all the world should not part us.  Why torture me with such a question?  Ah! you have heard something.”  And in a moment the lava of passion burst wildly through its thin sheet of ice.  “I was blind.  This is why you would save me from this unnatural marriage.  You are breaking the good news to me by degrees.  There is no need.  Quick—­quick—­let me have it.  I have waited three years; I am sick of waiting.  Why don’t you speak?  Why don’t you tell me?  Then I will tell you.  He is alive—­he is well—­he is coming.  It was not he those soldiers saw; they were so far off.  How could they tell?  They saw a uniform but not a face.  Perhaps he has been a prisoner, and so could not write; could not come:  but he is coming now.  Why do you groan? why do you turn pale? ah!  I see; I have once more deceived myself.  I was mad.  He I love is still a traitor to France and me, and I am wretched forever.  Oh! that I were dead! oh! that I were dead!  No; don’t speak to me:  never mind me; this madness will pass as it has before, and leave me a dead thing among the living.  Ah! sister, why did you wake me from my dream?  I was drifting so calmly, so peacefully, so dead, and painless, drifting over the dead sea of the heart towards the living waters of gratitude and duty.  I was going to make more than one worthy soul happy; and seeing them happy, I should have been content and useful—­what am I now?—­and comforted other hearts, and died joyful—­and young.  For God is good; he releases the meek and patient from their burdens.”