“Never, Rossie!” he exclaimed, vehemently, “never can I make her really my wife, feeling as I do. It would be a sin, and a mockery, and I shall not do it. You say I loved her once; perhaps I did, though it seems to me now like a child’s fancy for some forbidden dainty, which, if obtained, cloys on the stomach and sickens one ever after. No, Rossie, you talk in vain when you ask me to live with Josephine as my wife, or even live with her at all. The same roof cannot shelter us both. Support her I shall, but live with her, never! and I am prepared for all the people will say against me. If I have your respect and sympathy I can defy the world, though the future looks very dreary to me.” His voice trembled as he spoke, and he leaned back in his chair as if he, too, were faint and sick, while Rossie continued: “Then, if you will not live with her under any circumstances, this is my next best plan. Forrest House is her natural home, and she must stay here, whatever you may do.” “Here, Rossie! Here with you! Are you crazy?” Everard exclaimed, and Rosamond replied: “I am going away. I have thought it all over, and talked with Mrs. Markham. She has a friend in St. Louis who is wanting a governess for her three children, and she is going to write to-day and propose me, and if the lady consents, I,—I am going away.” Rossie finished the sentence with a long drawn breath, which sounded like a sob, for this going away from all she loved best was as hard for her as for Everard, who felt suddenly as if every ray of sunlight had been stricken from his life. With Rossie gone the world would be dark indeed, and for a few moments he used all his powers of eloquence to dissuade her from the plan, but she was quite resolved, and he understood it at last, and answered her: “Perhaps you are right; but Heaven pity me when you are gone!” For a moment Rosamond was silent, and then she said, in her usual frank way: “Yes, Everard, I understand, or I think I do, and it would be foolish in me to pretend _not_ to know,—to believe,—I mean,” and the bright color began to mount to Rossie’s cheeks as she went on: “I mean that I believe you do care for me some,—that if I were dead you would remember me longer than any one else. I guess you like me a little, don’t you, Everard?”