“I did not tell him all that at first. I asked him to marry me, just as I would have asked him to give me a glass of water, and with as little thought of shame, but the shame came afterward when I saw what I had done. I can’t explain how it came,—the new sense of things,—I think he looked it into me, and I felt in an instant as if I had been blind and was suddenly restored to sight. It was as if I had been walking unclothed in my sleep, fearlessly, shamelessly, because asleep, and had suddenly been roused to consciousness and saw a crowd of people staring and jeering at me. Oh, it was so awful! and I felt like tearing my hair and shrieking aloud, and I said so many things to make him believe I did not mean it for love or to live with him.”
“And what did he say to the offer? Did he accept or refuse?” Beatrice asked, and Rosamond replied:
“I do not think he did either. I was so ashamed when it came to me, and talked so fast to make him know that I would not marry him for a thousand times the money, and did not love him, and never could.”
“I’ll venture to say he was not especially delighted with such assertions; men are not generally,” Beatrice said, laughingly, but Rosamond did not comprehend her meaning, or if she did, she did not pay any heed to it, but went rapidly on with her story, growing more and more excited as she talked, and finishing with a passionate burst of tears, which awakened all Bee’s sympathy, and made her try to comfort the sobbing girl, who seemed so bowed down with shame and remorse.
Her head was aching dreadfully, and there began to steal over her such a faint, sick feeling, that she offered no remonstrance when Bee proposed that she spend the night at Elm Park, and sent word to that effect to the Forrest House.
The message brought Everard at once, anxious about Rosamond, whom he wished to see. But she declined; her head was aching too hard to see any one, she said, especially Everard, who must despise her always. Everard had certainly lost the child Rossie; and the world had never seemed so dreary to him as that night in Bee’s boudoir, when he fairly and squarely faced the future and decided what to do, or rather, Bee decided for him; and with a feeling of death in his heart he concurred in her opinion, and said he would go at once to Josephine, and telling her of his father’s death and will, ask her to help him build up a home where they might be happy. He was not to show her how he shrank back and shivered even while taking her for his wife. He was to put the most hopeful construction on everything, and see how much good there was in Josie.
“And I am sure she will not disappoint you,” Beatrice said, infusing some of her own bright hopefulness into Everard’s mind, so that he did not feel quite so discouraged when he said good-night to her, telling her that he should start on the next morning’s train for Holburton, but asking her not to tell Rossie of Josephine until she heard from him.
CHAPTER XXI.
A MIDNIGHT RIDE.
It was after midnight when Everard reached Albany, the second day after he left Rothsay. There the train divided, the New York passengers going one way, and the Boston passengers another. Everard was among the latter, and as several people left the car where he was, he felicitated himself upon having an entire seat for the remainder of his journey, and had settled himself for a sleep, with his soft traveling hat drawn over his eyes, and his valise under his head, when the door opened and a party of young people entered, talking and laughing, and discussing a concert which they had that evening attended. As there was plenty of room Everard did not move, but lay listening to their talk and jokes until another party of two came hurrying in just as the train was moving. The gentleman was tall, fine-looking, and exceedingly attentive to the lady, a fair blonde, whom he lifted in his arms upon the platform, and set down inside the door, saying as he did so: