But Rossie was not there; Rossie was dying far away over the sea; and only Josephine met him in the hall, civilly and haughtily, as had been her manner of late, and taking him into the reception-room where Rossie used to come to him and vex him so with her long dress and new airs of womanhood, told him she had an invitation to visit a friend who lived in Indianapolis, and who had invited her to spend the entire summer with her, and she wished to know if he could furnish her with money for the necessary outfit, and should she shut up the house again and let Agnes go to Holburton, or should she keep it open and leave Agnes in charge.
He told her she could have the money, and said that if Agnes wished to go to Holburton they might as well shut up the house for the summer; and then he left her and walked rapidly down the avenue, thinking of the girl whose presence seemed to fill the place so completely that once, when a bush near the carriage road rustled suddenly as a rabbit darted away, he stopped, half expecting to see a figure in white sun-bonnet and high-necked apron spring out at him just as Rossie used sometimes to do when she was a little child and he a well-grown boy. And she was dying then, when he was thinking so much of her, and she seemed to be so near him. “Dying then and dead now,” he said, to himself, just as a step was heard outside, and Lawyer Russell came in, stopping short in alarm at the white, haggard face which Everard lifted to him.
“What is it, my boy? Are you sick? What has happened? Tell me,” he asked; and motioning to the paper on the floor, Everard answered sadly, “Rossie is dead.”
“Rossie dead! No, no, Ned, it can’t be true,” Mr. Russell said, and picking up the paper he read the paragraph indicated by Everard, while a tear moistened his eyelids and rolled down his cheeks.
The old man had been very fond of Rossie, and for a few moments he walked up and down the little back office with his hands behind him and his head bent down, then stopping suddenly he gave vent to the exclamation “By George!” uttered in such a tone that Everard looked up quickly and inquiringly, and said:
“What is it? What’s the matter?”
“Ned, my boy, look here. This may not be the time nor place to speak of such a thing, but hanged if I can help it,” the lawyer replied, coming close to Everard and continuing, “I take it that you considered Rosamond Hastings to have been the lawful devisee to your father’s estate.”
“I know she was,” Everard said; and the lawyer went on in a choking voice:
“Poor little girl! She rebelled against it hotly, and would have deeded it to you if she had lived to come of age,—there’s nothing surer than that. But you say she’s dead, and she not twenty yet till June, and don’t you see, in spite of fate, the estate goes to her brother, who is her heir-at-law, and that’s what I call hard on you. I know nothing of the man except what you have told me, but if the half of that is true, he is a scamp, and will run through the property in a quarter of the time it took to make it. Maybe, though, he has some kind of honor about him, and if Rossie knew she was going to die, you may be sure she put in a plea for you, and perhaps he will divide; that’s the best you can hope for. So we won’t despair till we hear from the brother. There’s another mail from the north to-night. A letter may come by that. It ought to have been here with the paper. It’s a bad business all round,—very bad. Rossie dead; poor Rossie, the nicest girl and most sensible that ever was born, and the property gone to thunder!”
The old man was a good deal moved, and began again to walk the floor, while Everard laid his head upon the table in a half stupefied condition. Not that he then cared especially what became of his father’s money, though the thought that it would go to the man he hated most cordially was a fresh shock to his nerves, but it was nothing to losing Rossie. That was a grief which it seemed to him he could not bear. Certainly he could not bear it alone. He must tell it to some one who would not, like Lawyer Russell, talk to him of money; and when it began to grow dark, so that no one could see how white and worn he was, he arose and walked slowly up to Elm Park, sure of finding a ready and hearty sympathy there.