She was taking it hard,—her sudden accession to riches, and when she saw Everard she began sobbing afresh as if her heart would break.
“Please go away,” she said to Beatrice, “I want to see him alone.”
Beatrice complied, and the moment she was gone Rosamond began to tell Everard how impossible it was that she should ever touch the money left her in a fit of anger.
“It is not mine,” she said. “I have no shadow of right to it, and you must take it just the same as if that will had never been. Say you will, or I believe I shall go mad.”
But Everard was as immovable as a rock, and answered her:
“Do you for a moment think my pride, if nothing else, would allow me to touch what was willed away from me? Never, Rossie. I would rather starve; but I shall not do that. I am young and strong, and the world is before me, and I am willing to work at whatever I find to do, and shall do so, too, and make far more of a man, I dare say, than if I had all this money. I am naturally indolent and extravagant, and very likely should fall into my old expensive habits, and I don’t want to do that. I am so glad you are the heiress; so glad to have you mistress here in the old home. You will make a dear little lady of Forrest House.”
He spoke almost playfully, hoping thus to soothe and quiet her, for she was violently agitated, and shook like a leaf; but nothing he said had any effect upon her. Only one thing could help her now. She felt that she had unwittingly been the means of wronging Everard, and she never could rest until the wrong was righted, and his own given back to him.
“I’ll never be the lady of Forrest House,” she said, energetically. “I shall give it back to you, whether you will take it or not. It is not mine.”
“Yes, Rossie, it is yours. He knew what he was doing; he meant you to have it,” Everard said; and starting suddenly, as the remembrance of something flashed upon her, Rossie shed back her hair from her spotted, tear-stained face, and exclaimed, with a ring of joy in her voice:
“He might have meant it at first, when he was very angry, but he repented of it and tried to make amends. I see it now. I know what he meant,—the something which concerned you, and which I was to do. I promised solemnly I would,—it will be a dreadful lie if I don’t; but you will let me when you hear,—when you know how he took it back.”