“Oh, I am so glad, so happy, that he is spared to us! But, dear girls, will you not bring him home now, at once? I wish to see him so much! Did he ask for me? Did he send me any message?”
The sisters were so sorry for her that they hated to tell her the truth, that Charley had not even called her name.
But after confessing it they hastened to make excuses for their brother, saying he was so ill and feverish it was no wonder he had temporarily forgotten everything but his own sufferings.
Rosalind accepted their explanation with outward complacence, but the hot fires of jealousy seethed madly in her heart.
To herself she said bitterly:
“He did not ask for me, because he does not care, he thinks only of her, the little witch who stole his fickle heart from me! How strange, how very strange, that he should have been on the spot to save her life! He must have known she would be here, and followed to bask in the light of her eyes. Oh, how I hate her! Why does she not die, why should she live to balk me of my happiness, for the whole world is too narrow for my rival and me!”
In her angry thoughts she almost forgot the presence of the sisters, and they were startled by the lowering frown upon her face, realizing that she was bitterly disappointed at getting no message from Charley.
They hastened to tell her that the physician would not permit him to leave his bed yet, but that they would accompany her at any time to see her lover, assuring her that he would be charmed with the visit.
Rosalind believed quite otherwise, but she kept back the bitter words between her lips, resolving to go, indeed, to visit him, and to hurry up their marriage if she could, before the pretty actress got well.
Of the poor girl hovering between life and death, and all unconscious of her surroundings, she said not a word in pity, and when she was asked about the Indian seeress who had wrought such woe, she declared that she had never seen her before that night, and knew nothing of her whereabouts.