“She does?”
“Yes.”
Whereat Juliana looked most grave, and Rose felt that it was hard to breathe.
She had grown very cold and calm, and Juliana had to be expansive unprovoked.
“Believe nothing, dear, till you hear it from his own lips. If he can look in your face and say that he did it... well, then! But of course he cannot. It must be some wonderful piece of generosity to his rival.”
“So I thought, Juley! so I thought,” cried Rose, at the new light, and Juliana smiled contemptuously, and the light flickered and died, and all was darker than before in the bosom of Rose. She had borne so much that this new drop was poison.
“Of course it must be that, if it is anything,” Juliana pursued. “You were made to be happy, Rose. And consider, if it is true, people of very low birth, till they have lived long with other people, and if they have no religion, are so very likely to do things. You do not judge them as you do real gentlemen, and one must not be too harsh—I only wish to prepare you for the worst.”
A dim form of that very idea had passed through Rose, giving her small comfort.
“Let him tell you with his own lips that what he has told your mother is true, and then, and not till then, believe him,” Juliana concluded, and they kissed kindly, and separated. Rose had suddenly lost her firm step, but no sooner was Juliana alone than she left the bed, and addressed her visage to the glass with brightening eyes, as one who saw the glimmer of young hope therein.
“She love him! Not if he told me so ten thousand times would I believe it! and before he has said a syllable she doubts him. Asking me in that frantic way! as if I couldn’t see that she wanted me to help her to her faith in him, as she calls it. Not name his name? Mr. Harrington! I may call him Evan: some day!”