passages of the house when
Polly Wheedle, hurrying to her young mistress, met her loosely dressed
and with a troubled face.

'What 's the matter, Polly? I was coming to you.'

'O, Miss Rose! and I was coming to you. Miss Bonner's gone back to her
convulsions again. She's had them all night. Her hair won't last till
thirty, if she keeps on giving way to temper, as I tell her: and I know
that from a barber.'

'Tush, you stupid Polly! Does she want to see me?'

'You needn't suspect that, Miss. But you quiet her best, and I thought
I'd come to you. But, gracious!'

Rose pushed past her without vouchsafing any answer to the look in her
face, and turned off to Juliana's chamber, where she was neither welcomed
nor repelled. Juliana said she was perfectly well, and that Polly was
foolishly officious: whereupon Rose ordered Polly out of the room, and
said to Juliana, kindly: 'You have not slept, dear, and I have not
either. I am so unhappy.'

Whether Rose intended by this communication to make Juliana eagerly
attentive, and to distract her from her own affair, cannot be said, but
something of the effect was produced.

'You care for him, too,' cried Rose, impetuously. 'Tell me, Juley: do you
think him capable of any base action? Do you think he would do what any
gentleman would be ashamed to own? Tell me.'

Juliana looked at Rose intently, but did not reply.

Rose jumped up from the bed. 'You hesitate, Juley? What? Could you think
so?'

Young women after a common game are shrewd. Juliana may have seen that
Rose was not steady on the plank she walked, and required support.

'I don't know,' she said, turning her cheek to her pillow.

'What an answer!' Rose exclaimed. 'Have you no opinion? What did you say
yesterday? It's silent as the grave with me: but if you do care for him,
you must think one thing or the other.'

'I suppose not, then--no,' said Juliana.

Repeating the languid words bitterly, Rose continued:

'What is it to love without having faith in him you love? You make my
mind easier.'

Juliana caught the implied taunt, and said, fretfully:

'I'm ill. You're so passionate. You don't tell me what it is. How can I
answer you?'

'Never mind,' said Rose, moving to the door, wondering why she had spoken
at all: but when Juliana sprang forward, and caught her by the dress to
stop her, and with a most unwonted outburst of affection, begged of her
to tell her all, the wound in Rose's breast began to bleed, a