“Nothing but to leave me now,” she said. “I have heard so much and borne so much that none of it seems real. There’s a buzzing in my head, and I believe I’m going to faint again, or die. How could you do all this, and I trusted you so?—and, oh, Everard, where are you? It grows so dark and black, and I’m so sick and faint,” and with a sobbing, hysterical cry, Rossie involuntarily let her tired, aching head fall upon the arm which held it so gladly, and which fain would have kept it there forever. Rossie did not faint quite away, as she had done when the news of Everard’s marriage reached her, but she lay still and helpless in Everard’s arms until she felt his hot kisses upon her forehead, and that roused her at once. He had no right to kiss her, she no right to suffer it, and she drew herself away from him to the safe shelter of her pillows, as she said, with her old childish manner: “Everard, you must not kiss me like that. It is too late. Such things are over between us now.” She seemed to accept the fact that he loved her, and though the love was hopeless, and, turn which way she would, there was no brightness in the future, the knowledge of what might have been was in one sense very sweet to her, and the face which Everard took between his hands and looked earnestly into, while his lips quivered and his eyes were full of tears, seemed to him like the face of an angel. “Heaven pity me, Rossie,” he said. “Heaven pity us both for this which lies between us.” There was a knock outside the door and a voice Rossie had never heard before, said: “Miss Hastings, if my husband is with you, tell him his wife will be glad to see him when he can tear himself away. I have waited an hour, and surely I may claim my own now.” There was an unmistakable coarseness of meaning in the words which brought the hot blood to Rossie’s cheeks, but Everard was pale as death, as, with a muttered execration, he stepped back from Rossie, who said: “Yes, go, Everard. She is right. Her claim is first. Say I am sorry I kept you. Go, and when I have thought it all out I’ll send for you, but don’t come till I do.” She motioned him to leave her, and with the look of one going to the rack, he obeyed, and unbolting the door, went out, shutting it quickly behind him, and thus giving the woman outside no chance for more than a glance at the white-faced little girl, of whose personal appearance no impression could be formed. CHAPTER XXXV. MR. AND MRS. J. E. FORREST.