Nobody had ever heard of Mrs. J. E. Forrest, and few had heard of Rothsay, but there were some people at the St. James, this winter, who remembered Miss Belknap and Mrs. Morton, and when it was known that Mrs. Forrest was their friend the matter was settled, and Josephine became the belle and beauty of the place. Young men stationed themselves near the door through which she came in to the hall to look at her as she passed, but if she was conscious of their homage she made no sign, and never seemed to know how much attention she was attracting. One or two ladies spoke to her at last as she stopped for a while in the parlor, and so her acquaintance began, and Miss Belknap was brought to the surface, and Mr. Forrest was talked about, and a little hacking cough was produced, by way of showing what had sent this dainty, delicate creature away from her husband, with no other guardianship than that of her sister. But Agnes’ presence was sufficient to save appearances. She was much older, and so quiet and reserved, and even shy, that the ladies made no advances to her, and after a little scarcely noticed her as she sat apart from them, waiting patiently till her brilliant sister was ready to go home. Josephine was expecting a gentleman friend, whom she had known ever since she was a young girl, she said, the fourth day after her arrival, and the ladies were glad, as it would be so much pleasanter for her in her husband’s absence; and so matters were made easy for the coming of Dr. Matthewson, who, since parting from Josephine in Dresden, more than a year before, had visited nearly every city of note in Europe, sometimes meeting with success in his profession as gambler and sometimes not, sometimes living like a millionaire and sometimes like a beggar. The millionaire life suited him the best, but how to secure it as a permanency, or even to secure a comfortable living which required neither exertion nor self-denial, was something which puzzled him sorely, until he received a letter from Josephine, which inspired him at once with fresh courage and hope. The letter, which was written from the Forrest House, was a long time in reaching him, and found him at last in Moscow, where his genius of bad luck was in the ascendant, and he had fallen into the toils of a set of sharpers, who were using him for their own base purposes. Handsome in face and form, winning in his manner, and perfectly familiar with nearly every language spoken on the Continent, he was very useful to them by way of bringing under their influence strangers who visited the city, and they kept a hold upon him which he could not well shake off.
When he received Josephine’s letter telling him where she was, and the disposition Judge Forrest had made of his property, and Rosamond’s determination not to use more of it than was absolutely necessary, but to restore it to Everard when she came of age, he made up his mind to leave Moscow at all hazards, and, crossing the sea, seek out the sister in whom he suddenly found himself greatly interested. And to this end fortune favored him at last by sending in his way a German Jew,—Van Schoisner,—between whom and himself there sprang up a friendship which finally resulted in the Jew’s loaning him money enough to escape from the city which had been in one sense a prison to him. Van Schoisner was his compagnon-du-voyage, and as both were gamblers, they made straight for Vienna, where Matthewson’s luck came back to him, and he won so rapidly and largely that Van Schoisner, who was tinged with German superstition, regarded him as one whom the god of the gaming-table especially favored, and clung to him and made much of him, and when a malarial fever attacked him took him to his brother’s, a Dr. Van Schoisner, who kept what he called a private maison de sante, in an obscure Austrian town, half-way between Vienna and Lintz.
And here Dr. Matthewson paid the penalty of his dissipated life in a fit of sickness which lasted for months, and left him weak and feeble as a child. During all this time he did not hear from Josephine, whose letters never reached him, and he knew nothing of her until he reached New York, when he wrote at once to her at Rothsay, asking very particularly for Rosamond, and announcing his intention of visiting the Forrest House, if agreeable to the inmates.
To this letter Josephine replied immediately, telling him not on any account to come to Rothsay, but to join her in Florida about the middle of December, when she would tell him everything which had happened to her since their last meeting in Dresden. In a postscript she added:
“Miss Hastings is not here, and has not been since last January. She is somebody’s governess, I believe.”
And it was this postscript which interested the doctor more than the whole of Josephine’s letter. If Rosamond were not in Rothsay, then where was she, and how should he find her? for find her he must, and play the role of the loving brother, which role would be all the more effective, he thought, because of the air of invalidism there was about him now, and which sat well upon him. He really was weak from his recent illness, but he affected more languor than he felt, and seemed quite tired and exhausted when he reached the house where Josephine was stopping, and where his room was in readiness for him; and Josephine cooed and fluttered about him, and was glad to see him, and so anxious that he should have every possible attention.
And Dr. Matthewson enjoyed it all to the full, and was never tired of hearing of the Forrest House, or of asking questions about Rosamond, of whom Josey at last affected to be jealous.
And so the days went on until the first week in January, when one morning, as the doctor and Josephine sat together on the long piazza of the hotel, a carriage from the boat arrived, laden with trunks, and children, and two ladies, one middle-aged, and apparently the mother of the children, the other, young, graceful, and pretty, even in her soiled traveling dress of dark gray serge. As she threw back her vail and descended from the carriage Josephine started suddenly, and exclaimed:
“Rosamond Hastings, for all the world! What brought her here?”
“Who? Where? Do you mean that girl with the blue vail and gray dress, and,—by Jove, those magnificent eyes?” Dr. Matthewson said, as Rosamond turned her face in the direction where he was sitting, and glanced rapidly at the groups of people upon the piazza, without, however, seeing any one distinctly.