She sank with a groan into a chair, and body and spirit alike succumbed. But that was only for a little while. To this prostration succeeded a feverish excitement. She could not, would not, look Edouard in the face. She would implore Josephine to be silent; and she herself would fly from the chateau. But, if Josephine would not be silent? Why, then she would go herself to Edouard, and throw herself upon his honor, and tell him the truth. With this, she ran wildly up the stairs, and burst into Josephine’s room so suddenly, that she caught her, pale as death, on her knees, with a letter in one hand and a phial of laudanum in the other.
CHAPTER XXIV.
Josephine conveyed the phial into her bosom with wonderful rapidity and dexterity, and rose to her feet. But Rose just saw her conceal something, and resolved to find out quietly what it was. So she said nothing about it, but asked Josephine what on earth she was doing.
“I was praying.”
“And what is that letter?”
“A letter I have just received from Colonel Raynal.”
Rose took the letter and read it. Raynal had written from Paris. He was coming to Beaurepaire to stay a month, and was to arrive that very day.
Then Rose forgot all about herself, and even what she had come for. She clung about her sister’s neck, and implored her, for her sake, to try and love Raynal.
Josephine shuddered, and clung weeping to her sister in turn. For in Rose’s arms she realized more powerfully what that sister would suffer if she were to die. Now, while they clung together, Rose felt something hard, and contrived just to feel it with her cheek. It was the phial.