dless fingers fell from
it.

'If they do not meet, and he never marries, I may claim him in the next
world,' she mused.

But conscience continued uneasy. She turned her wrist and trailed a
letter from beneath the pillow. It was from Mrs. Shorne. Juliana knew the
contents. She raised it unopened as high as her faltering hands
permitted, and read like one whose shut eyes read syllables of fire on
the darkness.

'Rose has at last definitely engaged herself to Ferdinand, you will be
glad to hear, and we may now treat her as a woman.'

Having absorbed these words, Juliana's hand found strength to write, with
little difficulty, what she had to say to Rose. She conceived it to be
neither sublime nor generous: not even good; merely her peculiar duty.
When it was done, she gave a long, low sigh of relief.

Caroline whispered, 'Dearest child, are you awake?'

'Yes,' she answered.

'Sorrowful, dear?'

'Very quiet.'

Caroline reached her hand over to her, and felt the paper. 'What is
this?'

'My good-bye to Rose. I want it folded now.'

Caroline slipped from the couch to fulfil her wish. She enclosed the
pencilled scrap of paper, sealed it, and asked, 'Is that right?'

'Now unlock my desk,' Juliana uttered, feebly. 'Put it beside a letter
addressed to a law-gentleman. Post both the morning I am gone.'

Caroline promised to obey, and coming to Juliana to mark her looks,
observed a faint pleased smile dying away, and had her hand gently
squeezed. Juliana's conscience had preceded her contentedly to its last
sleep; and she, beneath that round of light on the ceiling, drew on her
counted breaths in peace till dawn.

CHAPTER XLIII

ROSE

Have you seen a young audacious spirit smitten to the earth? It is a
singular study; and, in the case of young women, a trap for inexperienced
men. Rose, who had commanded and managed every one surrounding her since
infancy, how humble had she now become!--how much more womanly in
appearance, and more child-like at heart! She was as wax in Lady
Elburne's hands. A hint of that veiled episode, the Beckley campaign,
made Rose pliant, as if she had woven for herself a rod of scorpions. The
high ground she had taken; the perfect trust in one; the scorn of any
judgement, save her own; these had vanished from her. Rose, the tameless
heroine who had once put her mother's philosophy in action, was the
easiest filly that turbaned matron ever yet drove into the straight road
of the wor