that kind, or we
are sisters no more, friends no more, one heart and one blood no more."

The weaker nature, weakened still more by ill-health and grief, was
terrified into submission, or rather temporized. "Kiss me then," said
Josephine, "and love me to the end. Ah, if I was only in my grave!"

Rose kissed her with many sighs, but Josephine smiled. Rose eyed her
with suspicion. That deep smile; what did it mean? She had formed some
resolution. "She is going to deceive me somehow," thought Rose.

From that day she watched Josephine like a spy. Confidence was gone
between them. Suspicion took its place.

Rose was right in her misgivings. The moment Josephine saw that
Edouard's happiness and Rose's were to be sacrificed for her whom
nothing could make happy, the poor thing said to herself, "I CAN DIE."

And that was the happy thought that made her smile.

The doctor gave her laudanum: he found she could not sleep: and he
thought it all-important that she should sleep.

Josephine, instead of taking these small doses, saved them all up,
secreted them in a phial, and so, from the sleep of a dozen nights,
collected the sleep of death: and now she was tranquil. This young
creature that could not bear to give pain to any one else, prepared her
own death with a calm resolution the heroes of our sex have not often
equalled. It was so little a thing to her to strike Josephine. Death
would save her honor, would spare her the frightful alternative of
deceiving her husband, or of telling him she was another's. "Poor
Raynal," said she to herself, "it is so cruel to tie him to a woman
who can never be to him what he deserves. Rose would then prove her
innocence to Edouard. A few tears for a weak, loving soul, and they
would all be happy and forget her."

One day the baroness, finding herself alone with Rose and Dr. Aubertin,
asked the latter what he thought of Josephine's state.

"Oh, she was better: had slept last night without her usual narcotic."

The baroness laid down her knitting and said, with much meaning, "And
I tell you, you will never cure her body till you can cure her mind. My
poor child has some secret sorrow."

"Sorrow!" said Aubertin, stoutly concealing the uneasiness these words
created, "what sorrow?"

"Oh, she has some deep sorrow. And so have you, Rose."

"Me, mamma! what DO you mean?"

The baroness's pale cheek flushed a little. "I mean," said she, "that
my patience is worn out at last; I cannot l