His tone was bitter, and Rose forbore to answer him. He was so good, this cousin of hers, and yet his poverty and his long-continued struggle to obtain an education had somewhat soured him, and he had not quite fulfilled the promise of his earlier years. He was also a little jealous of Vesper.
If Vesper had been as generous towards him as he was towards other people, Agapit would have kept up his old admiration for him. As it was, they both possessed indomitable pride along different lines, and all through these years not a line of friendly correspondence had passed between them,—they had kept severely apart.
But for this pride, Rose would have been allowed to share all that she had with her adopted brother, and would not have been obliged to stand aside and, with a heart wrung with compassion, see him suffer for the lack of things that she might easily have provided.
However, he was getting on better now. He had a large number of clients, and was in a fair way to make a good living for himself.
They talked a little more of Bidiane's arrival, that had made an unusual commotion in their quiet lives, then Agapit, having lingered longer than usual, hurried back to his office and his home, in the town of Weymouth, that was some miles distant from Sleeping Water.
A few hours later, Bidiane laid her tired, agitated head on her pillow, after putting up a very fervent and Protestant petition that something might enable her to look into the heart of her Catholic friend, Rose à Charlitte, and discover what the mysterious obstacle was that prevented her from enjoying a happy union with Mr. Nimmo.
[CHAPTER IV.]
AN UNKNOWN IRRITANT.
"Il est de ces longs jours d'indicible malaise
Où l'on voudrait dormir du lourd sommeil des morts,
De ces heures d'angoisse où l'existence pèse
Sur l'âme et sur le corps."