Rosaleen stood by, waiting. But Mr. Humbert turned away and the door was closed after him. And Miss Amy walked off to her own room with the letters.
Rosaleen, left alone in the dark passage, clenched her hands. She knew, she was certain that one of those letters was for her. But dared not ask. She thought that she might be able to steal it; she waited for a chance to enter Miss Amy’s room, and there in the waste paper basket she saw the torn fragments of an envelope. With her meek air she went about her work; Miss Amy really fancied that she suspected nothing. But the moment Miss Amy had gone out to market, she ran into the room and emptied the waste paper basket on to the floor, and, on her hands and knees, began to piece the envelope together. It was! Miss Rosaleen Humbert! But there was not a trace of the letter which must have been in it.
A dreadful resentment possessed her. She hated Miss Amy. As she sat sewing through the interminable evening, her anger almost stifled her. This woman had cheated and defrauded her. She had stolen her very life! And she was absolutely at her mercy, absolutely helpless. She couldn’t even explain to Nick. He would think of course that she had got his letter; he would see that she didn’t answer it. Perhaps he had suggested another meeting, perhaps he would go to wait for her somewhere, wait and wait, in vain....
That thought made her desperate. She thought for a moment of boldly confronting Miss Amy, but she very soon relinquished the idea. It couldn’t do any good, and it might do harm. No! She would have to try some other way.
The lamplight shone on her smooth head, bent over her work, her profile turned to Miss Amy had the guileless sweetness and carelessness of a child.... And Miss Amy was consumed with anger—an anger a hundred times fiercer than Rosaleen’s. She pretended to be reading, but the hands that held the magazine trembled, and she never turned a page. Rage, scorn, a hatred which she could not comprehend, filled her at the sight of this false maiden, this treacherous creature who dared stretch out her hand after the thing which life had withheld from the older woman. And suddenly, with shocking coldness, she burst forth:
“Did you tell that man I was your cousin?”
Rosaleen looked up, pale with fright. She waited a moment.
“I said—I only said—a sort of cousin....”
“You let him think that you—were something that you are not?”
She was silent.