“You do! You know it! And yet you are so calm! Nay, indeed, I am afraid you are mistaken; whom do you suppose it to be?”
“One once betrothed to myself—my cousin India!”
“You know it! And you are not unhappy about it! Oh, blessed Lord! I am so thankful—so glad!” And Rosalie dropped her face upon her hands, and wept softly and quietly.
“Dear Rosalie, has all this disturbance of yours been caused by your sympathy with unworthy me?”
“I remembered how you suffered at Cashmere—I feared—I dreaded if you met her suddenly here—the bride of another—that”——
“Well, dear Rose! That”——
“Oh, I fear you think me very impertinent. If you do, you may tell me so; indeed, I shall not take it amiss.”
“Tell me your thought, Rosalie. Was it that all those old wounds would be re-opened? That all those sufferings would be renewed?”
“Yes!”
“Yet you see that they are not.”