“The mean coward to do that,” the doctor exclaimed, and Josephine replied, “No, not mean at all. I made him tell me just what his father said. I gave him no peace till he did, for I wanted the truth, so as to know how far to press my claim to recognition; and I made up my mind that my best plan was to keep quiet a while, and let matters adjust themselves. Maybe the old man will die; he looked apoplectic, as if he might go off in some of his fits of temper, and then won’t I make the money fly, for no power on earth shall keep me from the Forrest House then.”
“And you’ll ride over everybody, I dare say,” the doctor suggested, and she answered him, “You bet your head on that,” the slang dropping from her pretty lips as easily and naturally as if they were accustomed to it, as indeed they were.
“Is Everard greatly improved?” was the next question, and Josephine replied, “Some would think so, perhaps, but I look upon him as a perfect milksop. I don’t believe I could fall in love with him now. Why, he is just as quiet and solemn as a graveyard; never laughs, nor jokes, nor smokes, nor anything; he is fine-looking, though, and I expect to be very proud of him when I am really his wife.”
“Which you never shall be, so help me Heaven!” was Everard’s mental ejaculation, as he ground his teeth together.
He had made up his mind, and neither Bee nor any one else could change it. That woman, coquetting so heartlessly with another man, and talking thus of him, should never even be asked to share his poverty, as he had intended doing. He would never voluntarily go into her presence again. He would return to Rothsay, tell his story to Bee and see what he could do to help Rossie, and then go to work like a dog for money with which to keep the woman quiet. And when the day came, as come it must, that his secret was known, there should be a separation, for live with her a single hour he would not. This was his decision, and he only waited for the train to stop in order to escape from her hateful presence. But it was an express and went speeding on, while the two in front of him kept up their conversation, which turned at last on Rosamond, the doctor asking “if she still lived at the Forrest House.”
Josephine supposed so, though she had heard nothing of her lately, and Dr. Matthewson asked next what disposition she intended to make of her when she was mistress of Forrest House.
“That depends,” Josephine replied, with her favorite shrug; “if there is nothing objectionable in her she can stay; if she proves troublesome, she will go.”
Oh, how Everard longed to shriek out that the girl who, if she proved troublesome, was to go from Forrest House, was the mistress there, with a right to dictate as to who would go or stay; but that would be to betray himself; so he kept quiet, while Josey, growing tired and sleepy, began to nod her golden head, which drooped lower and lower, until it rested on the shoulder of Dr. Matthewson, whose arm encircled the sleeping girl and adjusted the shawl about her, for it was growing cold and damp in the car.
Just then they stopped at a way station, and, taking his valise, Everard left the train, which after a moment went whirling on, leaving him standing on the platform alone in the November darkness.
There was a little hotel near by, where he passed a few hours, until the train, bound for Albany, came along, and carried him swiftly back in the direction of home and Rossie, of whom he thought many times, seeing her as she looked standing before him with that sweet pleading expression on her face, and that musical ring in her voice, as she asked to be his wife. How her eyes haunted him,—those brilliant black eyes, so full of truth, and womanly softness and delicacy. He could see them now as they had confronted him, fearlessly, innocently, at first, but changing in their expression as the sense of what she had done began to dawn upon her, bringing the blushes of shame to her tear-stained face.