"No, uncle," said Rosa gravely. "I wish to leave this house. I can
hardly breathe in it."

"What! your native air?"

"Mystery is not my native air; and this house is full of mystery. Voices
whisper at my door, and the people don't come in. The maids cast strange
looks at me, and hurry away. I scolded that pert girl Jane, and she
answered me as meek as Moses. I catch you looking at me, with love, and
something else. What is that something--? It is Pity: that is what it
is. Do you think, because I am called a simpleton, that I have no eyes,
nor ears, nor sense? What is this secret which you are all hiding from
one person, and that is me? Ah! Christopher has not written these five
weeks. Tell me the truth, for I will know it," and she started up in
wild excitement.

Then Dr. Philip saw the hour was come.

He said, "My poor girl, you have read us right. I am anxious about
Christopher, and all the servants know it."

"Anxious, and not tell ME; his wife; the woman whose life is bound up in
his."

"Was it for us to retard your convalescence, and set you fretting, and
perhaps destroy your child? Rosa, my darling, think what a treasure
Heaven has sent you, to love and care for."

"Yes," said she, trembling, "Heaven has been good to me; I hope Heaven
will always be as good to me. I don't deserve it; but then I tell God
so. I am very grateful, and very penitent. I never forget that, if I
had been a good wife, my husband--five weeks is a long time. Why do
you tremble so? Why are you so pale--a strong man like you? CALAMITY!
CALAMITY!"

Dr. Philip hung his head.

She looked at him, started wildly up, then sank back into her chair. So
the stricken deer leaps, then falls. Yet even now she put on a deceitful
calm, and said, "Tell me the truth. I have a right to know."

He stammered out, "There is a report of an accident at sea."

She kept silence.

"Of a passenger drowned--out of that ship. This, coupled with his
silence, fills our hearts with fear."

"It is worse--you are breaking it to me--you have gone too far to stop.
One word: is he alive? Oh, say he is alive!"

Philip rang the bell hard, and said in a troubled voice, "Rosa, think of
your child."

"Not when my husband--Is he alive or dead?"

"It is hard to say, with such a terrible report about, and no letters,"
faltered the old man, his courage failing him.

"What are you afraid of? Do you think I can't die, and go to him? Alive,
or dead?" and she stood bef