“Oh!” cried Rose, “is there no way but this?”
“Take care,” she screamed, wildly, to her and Camille, “I am on the verge of madness; is it for you two to thrust me over the precipice? Come, now, if you are a man of honor, if you have a spark of gratitude towards the poor woman who has given you all except her fair name—that she will take to the grave in spite of you all—promise that you will leave Raynal’s house this minute if he is alive, and let me die in honor as I have lived.”
“No, no!” cried Camille, terror-stricken; “it cannot be. Heaven is merciful, and Heaven sees how happy we are. Be calm! these are idle fears; be calm! I say. For if it is so I will obey you. I will stay; I will go; I will die; I will live; I will obey you.”
“Swear this to me by the thing you hold most sacred,” she almost shrieked.
“I swear by my love for you,” was his touching reply.
Ere they had recovered a miserable composure after this passionate outburst, all the more terrible as coming from a creature so tender as Josephine, agitated voices were heard at the door, and the baroness tottered in, followed by the doctor, who was trying in vain to put some bounds to her emotion and her hopes.
“Oh, my children! my children!” cried she, trembling violently. “Here, Rose, my hands shake so; take this key, open the cabinet, there is the Moniteur. What is the date?”
The journal was found, and rapidly examined. The date was the 20th of May.
“There!” cried Camille. “I told you!”
The baroness uttered a feeble moan. Her hopes died as suddenly as they had been born, and she sank drooping into a chair, with a bitter sigh.