"Gratitude!" repeated Cecil, "how dare you talk of gratitude to her, before me? Pass on and leave her, and be thankful that your sex shields you a second time from my indignation."
"Well you needn't bristle up so, sir," cried she, with a sneer. "I'm not going to kill her. I suppose you've got married to her by this time. But you'd better look sharp, lest she gets into a rambling way, as her mother did before her." With a malignant laugh the virago passed on, delighted to find that she had drawn quite a crowd to the spot where Eugenia still leaned, incapable of motion, and Rosamond stood, pale as a statue, brooding over the words of the woman, as if, like a Delphian priestess, she had uttered the oracles of fate.
"Why should she imagine her to be his wife," whispered the bosom serpent, subtle as its arch prototype in the bowers of Eden, "if she had not witnessed in him evidences of tenderness, such as a husband only should bestow? That random sentence spoke volumes, and justifies thy fearful suspicions. Alas for thee, Rosamond! The young blossoms of thy happiness are blighted in the sweet springtime of their bloom. There is no more greenness or fragrance for thee—better that thou hadst died, and been laid by thy mother's side, than live to experience the bitter pangs of deceived confidence and unrequited love."
Cecil, unconscious of the secret enemy that was operating so powerfully against him in the breast of Rosamond, wondered at her coldness to Eugenia; a coldness which became every day more apparent, and was even assuming the character of dislike. It seemed so natural in one so young and affectionate as Rosamond, to wind her affections round a being of corresponding youth and sensibility, so foreign to her gentle nature to treat one entirely dependent on her kindness, with such reserve and distrust—he wondered, regretted, and at length remonstrated. Eugenia had just anticipated a servant's movements in bringing him a book from the library, which he expressed a desire to see, and he had taken it from her hand with a smile of acknowledgment, when the instantaneous change in the countenance of Rosamond arrested his attention. It was so chilling, so inexplicable, he dropped the book to the ground in his confusion, which Eugenia, with her usual graceful readiness, again lifted and laid upon his knee. In raising her face from her bending position, she encountered the glance of Rosamond, which seemed to have upon her the momentary effect of fascination. She stood as if rooted to the spot, gazing steadfastly on her, then with a cheek as hueless as ashes, turned and precipitately left the apartment. Cecil and Rosamond looked at each other without speaking. Never had they exchanged such a look before. "Good heavens!" he exclaimed, rising and walking two or three times across the apartment, with a resounding tread. "Good heavens! what a transformation! I must know the cause of it. Tell me, Rosamond, and tell me truly and unreservedly, what means your mysterious and unkind behaviour to one who never can have offended you? What has Eugenia done to forfeit your affection as a friend, your consideration as a guest, your respect to the claims of your husband's adopted sister?"
"It were far better to subject your own heart and conscience to this stern inquisition, than mine, Cecil," replied Rosamond bitterly. "Had you informed me sooner of the length and breadth of my duties, I might have fulfilled them better. I did not know, when Eugenia was received into our household, how overwhelming were her claims. I did not know that I was expected to exalt her happiness on the ruins of my own."
"Rosamond! Rosamond!" interrupted Cecil, vehemently—"Beware what you say—beware lest you strike a deathblow to our wedded love. I can bear anything in the world but suspicion. Every feeling of my heart has been laid bare before you. There is not a thought that is not as open to your scrutiny as the heavens in the blaze of noonday. How unworthy of yourself, how disgraceful to me, how wounding to Eugenia, this unjustifiable conduct!"
Every chord of Rosamond's heart quivered with agony at this burst of indignant feeling from lips which had never before addressed her but in mild and persuasive tones. Had the wealth of worlds been laid at her feet, she would have given it to recall the last words she had uttered. Still, in the midst of her remorse and horror, she felt the overmastering influence of her imagined wrongs, and that influence triumphed over the suggestions of reason and the admonitions of prudence.
"It is ungenerous—it is unmanly," she cried, "to force me into the confession of sentiments which you blame me for declaring—I had said nothing, done nothing—yet you arraign me before the bar of inexorable justice, as the champion of the injured Eugenia. If the sincerity of my countenance offends you, it is my misfortune, not my fault. I cannot smile on the boldness I condemn, or the arts I despise."
"Boldness! arts!" repeated Cecil. "If there was ever an unaffected, impulsive child of nature, it is she whom you so deeply wrong; but you wrong yourself far more. You let yourself down from the high station where I had enthroned you, and paid you a homage scarcely inferior to an angel of light. You make me an alien from your bosom, and nourish there a serpent which will wind you deeper and deeper in its envenomed folds, till your heart-strings are crushed beneath its coils."
"I am indeed most wretched," exclaimed Rosamond; "and if I have made myself so, I deserve pity rather than upbraiding. Cecil, you never could have loved me, or you would not so lightly cast me from you."