him say he would not desist any the
more, and I care too little about the matter to go on persisting, and
persisting, and persisting."

"Why not, if he goes on pestering, and pestering, and pestering?"

"Ah, he is like you, all energy, at all hours; but I have so little
where my heart is unconcerned: he seems, too, to have a wish! I have
none either way, and my conscience says 'marry him!'"

"Your conscience say marry one man when you love another?"

"Heaven forbid! Rose, I love no one: I HAVE loved; but now my heart is
dead and silent; only my conscience says, 'You are the cause of all your
mother's trouble; you are the cause that Beaurepaire was sold. Now you
can repair that mischief, and at the same time make a brave man happy,
our benefactor happy.' It is a great temptation: I hardly know why I
said 'no' at all; surprise, perhaps--or to please you, pretty one."

Rose groaned: "Are you then worth so little that you would throw
yourself away on a man who does not love you, nor want you, and is quite
as happy single?"

"No; not happy; he is only stout-hearted and good, and therefore
content; and he is a character that it would be easy--in short, I feel
my power here: I could make that man happy; he has nobody to write to
even, when he is away--poor fellow!"

"I shall lose all patience," cried Rose; "you are at your old trick,
thinking of everybody but yourself: I let you do it in trifles, but I
love you too well to permit it when the happiness of your whole life is
at stake. I must be satisfied on one point, or else this marriage shall
never take place: just answer me this; if Camille Dujardin stood on one
side, and Monsieur Raynal on the other, and both asked your hand, which
would you take?"

"That will never be. Whose? Not his whom I despise. Esteem might ripen
into love, but what must contempt end in?"

This reply gave Rose great satisfaction. To exhaust all awkward
contingencies, she said, "One question more, and I have done. Suppose
Camille should turn out--be not quite--what shall I say--inexcusable?"

At this unlucky gush, Josephine turned pale, then red, then pale again,
and cried eagerly, "Then all the world should not part us. Why torture
me with such a question? Ah! you have heard something." And in a moment
the lava of passion burst wildly through its thin sheet of ice. "I was
blind. This is why you would save me from this unnatural marriage.
You are breaking the good news to me by degrees. Ther