As she now listened to Charley reading, a sudden revulsion of feeling came over her. Some note in his voice reassured her heart—if it needed reassuring. The quiet force of his presence stilled the tumult in her, so that her eyes could see without mist, her heart beat without agony; but every pulse in her was throbbing, every instinct was alive. Presently there rushed upon her the words that had rung in her ears and chimed in her heart at the Rest of the Flax-beaters:
“Take all, dear love! thou art my life’s defender;
Speak to my soul! Take life and love; take all.”
Feelings lying beneath the mad conflict of emotion which had sent her into this room in such unmaidenly fashion—feelings that were her deepest self-welled up. Her breath came hard and broken.
As Charley read on, a breathing seemed to answer his own. It became quicker than his own, it pierced the stillness, it filled the room with feeling, it came calling to him out of the silence. He swung round, and saw the girl in the doorway.
“Rosalie!” he cried, and sprang to his feet.
With a piteously pathetic cry, she flung herself on her knees beside the tailor’s bench where he worked every day, and, burying her face in her arms as they rested on the bench, wept bitterly.
“Rosalie!” he said anxiously, leaning over her. “What is the matter? What has happened?”
She wept more bitterly still; she made a despairing gesture. His hand touched her hair; he dropped on a knee beside her.
“Oh, I am so ashamed, ashamed! I have been so wicked,” she murmured.
“Rosalie, what has happened?” he urged gently. His own heart was beating hard, his own eyes were responding to hers. The new feelings alive in him, the forces his love had awakened, which, last night, had kept him sleepless, and had been upon him like a dream all day—they were at height in him now. He knew not how to command them.