Whether Rose intended by this communication to make Juliana eagerly attentive, and to distract her from her own affair, cannot be said, but something of the effect was produced.

‘You care for him, too,’ cried Rose, impetuously.  ’Tell me, Juley:  do you think him capable of any base action?  Do you think he would do what any gentleman would be ashamed to own?  Tell me.’

Juliana looked at Rose intently, but did not reply.

Rose jumped up from the bed.  ’You hesitate, Juley?  What?  Could you think so?’

Young women after a common game are shrewd.  Juliana may have seen that Rose was not steady on the plank she walked, and required support.

‘I don’t know,’ she said, turning her cheek to her pillow.

‘What an answer!’ Rose exclaimed.  ’Have you no opinion?  What did you say yesterday?  It’s silent as the grave with me:  but if you do care for him, you must think one thing or the other.’

‘I suppose not, then—­no,’ said Juliana.

Repeating the languid words bitterly, Rose continued: 

’What is it to love without having faith in him you love?  You make my mind easier.’

Juliana caught the implied taunt, and said, fretfully: 

’I’m ill.  You’re so passionate.  You don’t tell me what it is.  How can I answer you?’

‘Never mind,’ said Rose, moving to the door, wondering why she had spoken at all:  but when Juliana sprang forward, and caught her by the dress to stop her, and with a most unwonted outburst of affection, begged of her to tell her all, the wound in Rose’s breast began to bleed, and she was glad to speak.

’Juley, do you-can you believe that he wrote that letter which poor Ferdinand was—­accused of writing?’

Juliana appeared to muse, and then responded:  ’Why should he do such a thing?’

‘O my goodness, what a girl!’ Rose interjected.

’Well, then, to please you, Rose, of course I think he is too honourable.’

’You do think so, Juley?  But if he himself confessed it—­what then?  You would not believe him, would you?’

‘Oh, then I can’t say.  Why should he condemn himself?’

’But you would know—­you would know that he was a man to suffer death rather than be guilty of the smallest baseness.  His birth—­what is that!’ Rose filliped her fingers:  ’But his acts—­what he is himself you would be sure of, would you not?  Dear Juley!  Oh, for heaven’s sake, speak out plainly to me.’

A wily look had crept over Juliana’s features.

‘Certainly,’ she said, in a tone that belied it, and drawing Rose to her bosom, the groan she heard there was passing sweet to her.

‘He has confessed it to Mama,’ sobbed Rose.  ’Why did he not come to me first?  He has confessed it—­the abominable thing has come out of his own mouth.  He went to her last night . . .’

Juliana patted her shoulders regularly as they heaved.  When words were intelligible between them, Juliana said: