“Oh, Everard, what is it?” Beatrice asked, when she first met him and saw his white, haggard face.
He answered her as he had answered Mr. Russell, “Rossie is dead,” and then seated himself again in the chair from which he had arisen when she came in. Beatrice’s tears were falling like rain, but Everard’s eyes were as dry as if he had never thought to weep, and there was such a fearful expression of anguish on his face that Beatrice went up to him, and laying her hand on his head, said, pityingly:
“Oh, Everard, don’t look like that. You frighten me. Cry, can’t you, just as I do? Tears would do you good.”
“Cry?” he repeated. “How can I cry with this band like red-hot iron around my heart, forcing it up to my throat. I shall never cry again, or laugh, never. Bee, I know you think me foolish and wicked, too, perhaps; half the world would think it, and say I had no right to love Rossie as I do, and perhaps I have not; but the dearest, sweetest memory of my life is the memory of what she was to me. I know she could never be mine. I gave that up long ago, and still the world was pleasanter to me because she was in it. Oh, Rossie, my darling, how can I live on and know that you are dead?”
Then Beatrice did not attempt to comfort him, for she knew she could not, but she sat by him in silence until he arose and went away, saying to her at parting, and as if he had not told her before, “Rossie is dead.”
CHAPTER XLIII.
THE LETTERS.
The next day’s mail brought four foreign letters to Rothsay,—one for Everard, one for Beatrice, one for Josephine, and one for Lawyer Russell. They were all mailed in Vienna, within two days of each other, and the one addressed to Everard was as follows:
“Vienna, April —, ——.
“Mr. Everard Forrest:—Dear Sir—I hardly know why I write to you first, unless it is because I know that what I have to say will hurt you most; you, who I think loved my darling Rossie. You have perhaps received the American Register which I ordered to be sent you from the office in Paris when I forwarded the notice, and so you know why I write to you now. I have written to you from time to time of Rossie’s failing health, but never told you as bad as it was, for I did not wish to alarm you unnecessarily, and kept hoping that change of scene might bring the improvement I so greatly desired. But nothing helped her, though she never complained of anything but fatigue. ‘So tired,’ was all she ever said of herself, and she seemed like some sweet flower fading gradually.