A choking voice answered, “Give me a little while to draw my breath.” Rose sank down at the door, and sat close to it, with her head against it, sobbing bitterly. She was hurt at not being let in; such a friend as she had proved herself. But this personal feeling was only a fraction of her grief and anxiety. A good half hour elapsed ere Josephine, pale and stern as no one had ever seen her till that hour, suddenly opened the door. She started at sight of Rose couched sorrowful on the threshold; her stern look relaxed into tender love and pity; she sank, blushing, on her knees, and took her sister’s head quickly to her bosom. “Oh, my little love, have you been here all this time?”--“Oh! oh! oh!” was all the little love could reply. Then the deserted one, still kneeling, took Rose in her lap, and caressed and comforted her, and poured words of gratitude and affection over her like a warm shower. They rose hand in hand. Then Rose suddenly seized Josephine, and looked long and anxiously down into her eyes. They flashed fire under the scrutiny. “Yes, it is all over; I could not despise and love. I am dead to him, as he is dead to France.” This was joyful news to Rose. “I hoped it would be so,” said she; “but you frightened me. My noble sister, were I ever to lose your esteem, I should die. Oh, how awful yet how beautiful is your scorn. For worlds I would not be that Cam”--Josephine laid her hand imperiously on Rose’s mouth. “To mention his name to me will be to insult me; De Beaurepaire I am, and a Frenchwoman. Come, dear, let us go down and comfort our mother.” They went down; and this patient sufferer, and high minded conqueror, of her own accord took up a commonplace book, and read aloud for two mortal hours to her mother and Aubertin. Her voice only wavered twice. To feel that life is ended; to wish existence, too, had ceased; and so to sit down, an aching hollow, and take a part and sham an interest in twaddle to please others; such are woman’s feats. How like nothing at all they look! A man would rather sit on the buffer of a steam-engine and ride at the Great Redan. Rose sat at her elbow, a little behind her, and turned the leaves, and on one pretence or other held Josephine’s hand nearly all the rest of the day. Its delicate fibres remained tense, like a greyhound’s sinews after a race, and the blue veins rose to sight in it, though her voice and eyes were mastered. So keen was the strife, so matched the antagonists, so hard the victory. For ire and scorn are mighty. And noble blood in a noble heart is heroic. And Love is a giant. CHAPTER II. The French provinces were now organized upon a half military plan, by which all the local authorities radiated towards a centre of government. By-the-by, this feature has survived subsequent revolutions and political changes.