She was dumb for a moment, hot waves of colour rushing over brow and neck. What was it the man had said last year? ‘You will wake up some day, my beauty.’ Words of ill omen! They had often tantalised and tormented her, but now, as they recurred to her, her heart seemed to stand still. Ashamed of her burning face, on which the young man’s eyes were now fixed, and of the agitation which she could not master, she suddenly bent forward confusedly. ‘What is the name of the painter? Let me look.’ Before Richard could divine her intention she had snatched the print from his hand, its black and jagged edges immediately catching her eye. ‘Why,’ she said in an altered tone—‘why, it is burnt.’ It was now Richard’s turn to look confused. ‘I began to burn it, but repented of my intention.’ ‘You wanted to burn it,’ said Rosalie, ‘because you were so angry with me. Why were you so angry with me? Was it because of—of what your uncle told you?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘I know he did not mean to do me harm,’ said Rosalie tremulously, ‘but I don’t think he—he can have made you understand properly. Everything was going wrong, and—and I was so much bothered; I found I could not manage by myself, and he had been my poor Elias’s friend’—she was beginning to sob now—‘and I knew I could trust him not to do anything Elias would n’t have liked, and—oh, it is so difficult to explain!’ ‘Pray do not try to explain,’ said Richard very gently. ‘But you should n’t misjudge me as you do,’ cried she, and then burst into tears. ‘I do not misjudge you now,’ said Richard in a low voice. ‘Oh, don’t cry! I assure you I understand. You have been quite right—quite right all along.’ The big tearful blue eyes looked at him over the crumpled handkerchief. ‘But you said—you said I sold myself,’ she gasped. ‘You should n’t have said that! I loved my husband.’ ‘I am sure you did,’ said Richard gravely and tenderly. ‘Yes, indeed I did. I loved him from the first. He was like a father to me.’ ‘Yes, yes,’ said Richard, and he looked at her with an odd mixture of wonder and compassion. ‘He was just as kind and dotingly fond of me as my own dear granfer.’ ‘To be sure,’ said Richard. ‘Yes; no wonder you loved him.’ Something in his tone caused Rosalie to pull down her handkerchief and to cast a keen glance at him. ‘Why do you look at me like that?’ she said passionately. ‘Was I looking at you in any particular way?’ returned he, averting his eyes quickly. ‘Yes, you were. You were looking at me as if you were sorry for me! How dare you be sorry for me?’ ‘Were you not telling me,’ he said quietly, ‘how much you felt the loss of your good old husband?’ ‘You know it was not that,’ she retorted. ‘You looked at me as if I were a child who had no sense—as if I did not know what I was saying.’ ‘Did I?’ said Richard. ‘I beg your pardon.’