“Yet, I doubt if she will ever be apprehended. She has had ample time to escape and cover up all traces of her identity,” sighed Madam Fortescue, wishing from her heart that the wretch might be brought to justice.
“Oh, how grieved, how dismayed Rosalind will be to hear all this,” cried Lucile, with tears. “Only think, when she was generously planning such a pleasure for those people out of her own purse, she was vilely imposed on by a murderous wretch who nearly destroyed two lives. Why, if dear Charley should die, dear Rosalind would feel like a murderess, although she did not even know that he was in the city.”
“But where was Rosalind all the evening? It seems to me now that I do not remember seeing her at all in the ballroom,” exclaimed Madam Fortescue.
“Why, poor Rosie had a little chapter of accidents that spoiled her whole evening,” answered Marie. “In the first place, she became suddenly ill, soon after the dancing began, and had to retire to her room to lie down a while. It was one of those terrible headaches, you know, that will only get better in a dark, quiet place, so she said we must leave her alone, as she should lock her door and must not be disturbed. Well, something after midnight she returned to the ballroom, and was better, but looking so pale and ill yet that I was surprised to see her dancing again. But pretty soon she came to me all angry and nervous, and I could not blame her at all. Some one had torn a great rent in her white lace gown, and she had to retire, and she said she would not appear again, because she was too tired to change her gown. Poor thing, I hope she will sleep off her sickness by to-morrow, so that she can go with us to see Charley.”
“It will give her a terrible turn to hear of all the mischief that old fortune teller did, but it cannot be helped now,” remarked Mrs. Hopson.
Then they all separated for the night, or rather morning, since it lacked but a few short hours to daylight.
As Miss Montague was the latest of all arising, and took her coffee in her own room, it was very late afternoon before the two sisters came in and told her their startling news.
She was quite as much dismayed as they expected, and when she heard that it was her betrothed, Charley Bonair himself, who had been wounded in the pit, Rosalind fainted away in dead earnest. When she revived she was almost hysterical.
“Do not tell me he is dead, my love, my Charley, or my heart will break!” she moaned in anguish.
When they told her he would get well, that they had been down to the cottage already to see him, and that he was resting easily, she smiled again.