is mean? Why has my wife
swooned at sight of me?--whose is this child?"

"Whose?" stammered Rose. Till he said that, she never thought there
COULD be a doubt whose child.

Dring! dring! dring! dring! dring!

"Oh, my God!" cried the poor girl, and her scared eyes glanced every way
like some wild creature looking for a hole, however small, to escape by.

Edouard, seeing her hesitation, came down on her other side. "Whose is
the child, Rose?" said he sternly.

"You, too? Why were we born? mercy! oh! pray let me go to my sister."

Dring! dring! dring! dring! dring! went the terrible bell.

The men were excited to fury by Rose's hesitation; they each seized an
arm, and tore her screaming with fear at their violence, from her knees
up to her feet between them with a single gesture.

"Whose is the child?"

"You hurt me!" said she bitterly to Edouard, and she left crying and was
terribly calm and sullen all in a moment.

"Whose is the child?" roared Edouard and Raynal, in one raging breath.
"Whose is the child?"

"It is mine."

CHAPTER XX.

These were not words; they were electric shocks.

The two arms that gripped Rose's arms were paralyzed, and dropped off
them; and there was silence.

Then first the thought of all she had done with those three words
began to rise and grow and surge over her. She stood, her eyes turned
downwards, yet inwards, and dilating with horror.

Silence.

Now a mist began to spread over her eyes, and in it she saw indistinctly
the figure of Raynal darting to her sister's side, and raising her head.

She dared not look round on the other side. She heard feet stagger on
the floor. She heard a groan, too; but not a word.

Horrible silence.

With nerves strung to frenzy, and quivering ears, that magnified every
sound, she waited for a reproach, a curse; either would have been some
little relief. But no! a silence far more terrible.

Then a step wavered across the room. Her soul was in her ear. She could
hear and feel the step totter, and it shook her as it went. All sounds
were trebled to her. Then it struck on the stone step of the staircase,
not like a step, but a knell; another step, another and another; down to
the very bottom. Each slow step made her head ring and her heart freeze.

At last she heard no more. Then a scream of anguish and recall rose
to her lips. She fought it down, for Josephine and Raynal. Edouard
was gone. She had but her sister now, the sister sh