"No, thank God, I could not! It was stronger than my base passion, stronger than myself. Oh, Denis, I thank you for your love! It has saved me from a hell in life, and a hell hereafter, for I think God will not further punish one so deeply repentant as I."
"You are not going to die, Rosanne," he repeated firmly.
"Do you think I would live and let you link your clean, upright life with my dark one?" she said sadly. "You do not even know all the darkness of it yet. Listen: I found I had a power through which I could hurt others by just wishing them ill—and I used it freely. Ah, I have hurt many people! It tortures me to think of how many. I have been lying here for two days and nights trying to undo all the harm I have done, Denis—willing against the evil I have wished for, praying for happiness to be given back to every one of them." Her voice grew faint and far-off. "I have even tried to undo the harm I wished would come to the two people who tempted me into stealing, Denis. But, somehow, I feel that it is too late for them. That something in here"—she touched her heart—"which hurts me so much, tells me I cannot help those two wretched ones."
Her voice broke off; she was shaken like a reed with a terrible spasm of suffering. It was as though she were in the clutches of some brutal giant.
"Denis," she cried faintly, "I feel I am being rent asunder! Part of me is being torn away. Surely, even death cannot be so terrible!"
A clock on the table struck eight. Instantly she raised herself in bed, fell back again, gave a deep sigh, and lay still.
A few hours later, she woke with a gentle flush in her cheeks and a wonderful harmony in all her features. Her first glance fell upon her mother leaning over the foot of the bed, and she gave a happy smile.
"Oh, mother, I have had such a lovely dream! I dreamed Dick was well and coming back soon to Rosalie."
"And so he is, my darling. She has had a wire to say that Doctor Raymond has discovered that the throat trouble is not malignant but quite curable. He will be well in a few weeks."
"Then it may come true, my dream," she said softly and shyly. "My dream that she and I were being married on the same day, she to Dick, and I to—oh, Denis, how strange that you should be here when I was dreaming of you! What brought you here? Have you come to tell mother that we love each other?"