"It is rather important," he pleaded, looking very boyish. But she seemed to notice nothing, and shook her head.
"Some other time—my poor Rosalie is ill—in trouble; she has heard some distressing news."
He drew back at once, apologizing, and a few minutes later was gone. Rosanne followed her mother and sister into the house, a strangely yearning, sorrowful look upon her face. Nothing was said. Rosalie seemed half-fainting, and her mother, still supporting her, led her to the door of her bedroom. They disappeared together. Rosanne stared after them, but made no attempt to help. When they had gone, she sat still in the hall, waiting. Sometimes she looked at the sparkling thing in her hand (she had caught it up from her lap when her mother came into the veranda), a slim, flexible string of diamonds for weaving in the hair—glowing and glimmering like spurts of flame imprisoned within frozen dewdrops. Sometimes she looked at the great emerald Denis Harlenden had set on her finger. But her eyes had something of the fixed, unseeing stare of the sleep-walker. At last Sophia Ozanne came back and stood beside her. Neither looked at the other.
"What is it mother?" she asked, in a low voice.
"Richard Gardner is very ill. They hoped it was only a sore throat that would soon yield to treatment; but he went to a specialist today—that Doctor Stratton who came out to see the Cape governor's throat—and he seems to think—" Poor Mrs. Ozanne halted and choked as if she herself were suffering from an affection of the throat. Rosanne still sat silent and brooding.
"He seems to think it is something malignant—and, in that case, he and poor Rosalie—" She broke down.
"Will never be able to marry, mother?" asked Rosanne, not curiously, only sadly, as if she knew already. Her mother nodded.
"Who told you?"
"Richard's brother was at the Chilvers'; he thought we had better know at once."
Mrs. Ozanne sat down by the little Benares table and, resting her face on her hands, began to cry quietly. Rosanne stared before her with an absorbed stare. She seemed in a very transport of grave thought. When Mrs. Ozanne at length raised her eyes for an almost furtive glance, she thought she had never seen anything so tragic as her daughter's face. Her own was working horribly with misery and some urgent necessity.