‘What do you mean?’ said Lizzie, though she knew well enough, as she stood before them white and trembling.
‘Ah, Miss Lizzie, you berry sly. You know berry well what I mean. I want to see dat nice baby of yours. Is he like my little Carlo? Ah! I know he’s white, like his moder, but I will love him all de same, if you will let me.’
‘Henri,’ said Lizzie, with an assumption of great calmness, in order to cover the shaking of her voice, ‘will you stand by silent and hear this girl insult me?’
‘Certainly not,’ he replied. ‘Go back to the field, Rosa, and continue your work. You said Miss Lizzie asked you to return with me, or you should not have come.’
‘She deceived you,’ said Lizzie. ‘I have not seen her nor spoken to her this morning.’
‘I know dat berry well,’ cried Rosa impudently; ‘but I come to see dat baby of yours, and I bring Massa Courcelles to see it too. And now I will go back to my work with a light heart, for I wish you joy, Miss Lizzie, and I hope de Lord won’t send for dat baby of yours same He did for my poor little Carlo,’ and with another curtsey, the yellow girl turned on her heel, and ran out of the bungalow, leaving Henri de Courcelles and Lizzie together.
She was the first to speak.
‘Had you any knowledge of Rosa’s intentions when she brought you here?’ she asked quietly.
‘Not the slightest, upon my honour,’ he replied. ‘I sent her to you with my empty flask, to beg a little sherbet, and she returned with a message that you desired to see me at once, and that she was to accompany me back again. On the way, she told me a story that I found it almost impossible to believe.’
‘And what was the story?’