But a young princess could not have been guarded with more loving care than the poor little actress, and it was all through Charley Bonair that this was so.
He employed two competent nurses for the sick room, and one or the other was ordered to remain always in the girl’s apartment.
“We must remember always that she has a cruel and unscrupulous enemy thirsting for her young life,” he said. “That enemy may be hovering about, watching for an opportunity to complete her murderous work. She must be foiled in her terrible designs,” he said firmly, and Rosalind, who heard the words, turned aside to hide a cruel sneer that parted her crimson lips.
She was disappointed in all her crafty little schemes for entrapping him into marriage before Berry recovered. It was plainer to her than ever that she had lost every hold she had upon him, and she dreaded every day that he would ask for a release from his engagement.
Rosalind said to herself that when that happened she was afraid she would go mad of her anger and despair.
A jilted bride! How could she bear the stigma, how turn aside the jeers of her little carping world?
“I cannot, I will not release him if he dares plead to me. I will hold him to his promise, and he dare not back down!” she vowed bitterly.
Charley Bonair’s convalescence was so slow that every one became uneasy, not dreaming that he played a deceitful part in order to remain as long as he could beneath the same roof with Berry. Besides, as he said to himself, he could hold Rosalind off better that way. Though she came every day with his sisters to visit him, he frequently pretended to be too ill or nervous to receive them till at last his doctor rallied him soundly.
“What game is it you are playing, Bonair? You were well enough two weeks ago.”
Before Bonair left at last, the nurses permitted him to sit a half hour in Berry’s room watching her as she slept, with the dark silken lashes prone upon her snowy cheek, and the breath just stirring the white folds of her breast.