She hurried down to embrace her son.
Josephine went without a word to her own room. Rose followed her the next minute. But in that one minute she worked magic.
She glided up to Edouard, and looked him full in the face: not the sad, depressed, guilty-looking humble Rose of a moment before, but the old high-spirited, and some what imperious girl.
“You have shown yourself noble this day. I am going to trust you as only the noble are trusted. Stay in the house till I can speak to you.”
She was gone, and something leaped within Edouard’s bosom, and a flood of light seemed to burst in on him. Yet he saw no object clearly: but he saw light.
Rose ran into Josephine’s room, and once more surprised her on her knees, and in the very act of hiding something in her bosom.
“What are you doing, Josephine, on your knees?” said she, sternly.
“I have a great trial to go through,” was the hesitating answer.
Rose said nothing. She turned paler. She is deceiving me, thought she, and she sat down full of bitterness and terror, and, affecting not to watch Josephine, watched her.
“Go and tell them I am coming, Rose.”