"I really must."
"But you will come to-morrow?" still holding her hand.
"Perhaps so—if I have nothing better to do."
"You cannot do anything better than visit the sick, and oh, yes! do me another favour. Fetch me some books to read—to pass the dismal hours of your absence."
"Very well; now let me go."
He released her plump little hand, and Rose drew on her gloves.
"Adieu, Mr. Reinecourt," moving to the door.
"Au revoir, Miss Danton, until to-morrow morning."
Rose rode home in delight. In one instant the world had changed. St. Croix had become a paradise, and the keen air sweet as "Ceylon's spicy breezes." As Alice Carey says, "What to her was our world with its storms and rough weather," with that pallid face, those eyes of darkest splendour, that magnetic voice, haunting her all the way. It was love at sight with Miss Danton the second. What was the girlish fancy she had felt for Jules La Touche—for Dr. Frank—for a dozen others, compared with this.
Joe, the stable-boy, led away Regina, and Rose entered the house. Crossing the hall, she met Eeny going upstairs.