The two arms that gripped Rose’s arms were paralyzed, and dropped off them; and there was silence.
Then first the thought of all she had done with those three words began to rise and grow and surge over her. She stood, her eyes turned downwards, yet inwards, and dilating with horror.
Silence.
Now a mist began to spread over her eyes, and in it she saw indistinctly the figure of Raynal darting to her sister’s side, and raising her head.
She dared not look round on the other side. She heard feet stagger on the floor. She heard a groan, too; but not a word.
Horrible silence.
With nerves strung to frenzy, and quivering ears, that magnified every sound, she waited for a reproach, a curse; either would have been some little relief. But no! a silence far more terrible.
Then a step wavered across the room. Her soul was in her ear. She could hear and feel the step totter, and it shook her as it went. All sounds were trebled to her. Then it struck on the stone step of the staircase, not like a step, but a knell; another step, another and another; down to the very bottom. Each slow step made her head ring and her heart freeze.
At last she heard no more. Then a scream of anguish and recall rose to her lips. She fought it down, for Josephine and Raynal. Edouard was gone. She had but her sister now, the sister she loved better than herself; the sister to save whose life and honor she had this moment sacrificed her own, and all a woman lives for.
She turned, with a wild cry of love and pity, to that sister’s side to help her; and when she kneeled down beside her, an iron arm was promptly thrust out between the beloved one and her.