His lip quivered. 'I shall not see
Miss Jocelyn again. Yes; I would lay down my life for her; but that's
idle talk. No such chance will ever come to me. But I can save her from
being spoken of in alliance with me, and what I am, and I tell you,
Louisa, I will not have it.' Saying which, and while he looked harshly
at her, wounded pride bled through his eyes.

She was touched. 'Sit down, dear; I must explain to you, and make you
happy against your will,' she said, in another voice, and an English
accent. 'The mischief is done, Van. If you do not want Rose Jocelyn to
love you, you must undo it in your own way. I am not easily deceived. On
the morning I went to her house in town, she took me aside, and spoke to
me. Not a confession in words. The blood in her cheeks, when I mentioned
you, did that for her. Everything about you she must know--how you bore
your grief, and all. And not in her usual free manner, but timidly, as
if she feared a surprise, or feared to be wakened to the secret in
her bosom she half suspects--"Tell him!" she said, "I hope he will not
forget me."'

The Countess was interrupted by a great sob; for the picture of frank
Rose Jocelyn changed, and soft, and, as it were, shadowed under a
veil of bashful regard for him, so filled the young man with sorrowful
tenderness, that he trembled, and was as a child.

Marking the impression she had produced on him, and having worn off that
which he had produced on her, the Countess resumed the art in her style
of speech, easier to her than nature.

'So the sweetest of Roses may be yours, dear Van; and you have her in
a gold setting, to wear on your heart. Are you not enviable? I will
not--no, I will not tell you she is perfect. I must fashion the sweet
young creature. Though I am very ready to admit that she is much
improved by this--shall I call it, desired consummation?'

Evan could listen no more. Such a struggle was rising in his breast: the
effort to quench what the Countess had so shrewdly kindled; passionate
desire to look on Rose but for one lightning flash: desire to look on
her, and muffled sense of shame twin-born with it: wild love and leaden
misery mixed: dead hopelessness and vivid hope. Up to the neck in
Purgatory, but his soul saturated with visions of Bliss! The fair orb of
Love was all that was wanted to complete his planetary state, and aloft
it sprang, showing many faint, fair tracts to him, and piling huge
darknesses.

As if in search of