'I'm ill. You're so passionate. You don't tell me what it is. How can
I answer you?'
'Never mind,' said Rose, moving to the door, wondering why she had spoken at all: but when Juliana sprang forward, and caught her by the dress to stop her, and with a most unwonted outburst of affection, begged of her to tell her all, the wound in Rose's breast began to bleed, and she was glad to speak.
'Juley, do you-can you believe that he wrote that letter which poor
Ferdinand was—accused of writing?'
Juliana appeared to muse, and then responded: 'Why should he do such a thing?'
'O my goodness, what a girl!' Rose interjected.
'Well, then, to please you, Rose, of course I think he is too honourable.'
'You do think so, Juley? But if he himself confessed it—what then?
You would not believe him, would you?'
'Oh, then I can't say. Why should he condemn himself?'
'But you would know—you would know that he was a man to suffer death rather than be guilty of the smallest baseness. His birth—what is that!' Rose filliped her fingers: 'But his acts—what he is himself you would be sure of, would you not? Dear Juley! Oh, for heaven's sake, speak out plainly to me.'
A wily look had crept over Juliana's features.