Rosalind did not make any reply. She gazed at him from her dark corner with dilated eyes, but he did not see the trouble of her look, nor divine the sudden stimulus his words had given to the whirl of her miserable thoughts. She said to herself that her mother would know, whoever doubted her, that Rosalind never would doubt; and at the same time there came a wondering horror of a question whether indeed her mother would be glad to be rid of her, to have her out of the way, to keep her at least unconscious of the other thing, the secret, perhaps the wrong, that was taking place in those dark evening hours? Might it be, as Uncle John said, better to fly, to turn her back upon any revelation, to refuse to know what it was. The anguish of this conflict of thought tore her unaccustomed heart in twain. And then she tried to realize what the house would be without her, with that profound yet perfectly innocent self-importance of youth which is at once so futile and so touching. So sometimes a young creature dying will imagine, with far more poignant regret than for any suffering of her own, the blank of the empty room, the empty chair, the melancholy vacancy in the house, when she or he has gone hence and is no more. Rosalind saw the great house vacant of herself with a feeling that was almost more than she could bear. When her mother came out of the sick-room, to whom would she go for the repose, the soothing of perfect sympathy--upon whom would she lean when her burden was more than she could bear? When Sophy’s lessons were over, where would the child go? Who would write to Rex, and keep upon the schoolboy the essential bond of home? Who would play with the babies in the nursery when their mother was too much occupied to see them? Mamma would have nobody but Russell, who hated her, and her own maid Jane, who was like her shadow, and all the indifferent servants who cared about little but their own comfort. As she represented all these details of the picture to herself, she burst forth all at once into the silence with a vehement “No, no!” John Trevanion had fallen into thought, and the sound of her voice made him start. “No, no!” she cried, “do you think, Uncle John, I am of so little use? Everybody, even papa, would want me. Sometimes he will bid me sit down, that I am something to look at, something not quite so aggravating as all the rest. Is not that something for one’s father to say? And what would the children do without me, and Duckworth, who cannot always see mamma about the dinner? No, no, I am of use here, and it is my place. Another time I can go to Aunt Sophy--later on, when papa is--better--when things are going smoothly,” she said, with a quiver in her voice, holding back. And just then the distant door of Mr. Trevanion’s room opened and closed, and the doctor appeared, holding back the heavy curtains that screened away every draught from the outer world. CHAPTER V.