WHO WAS ROSE FLOWERS?
"Well, my dear Corona, I must ask you to cast your thoughts back to that
year when you first came to Rockhold to live, and engrossed so much of
your grandmother's time and attention that your grandfather grew jealous
and impatient, and commissioned me to 'hire' a nursery governess to
look after you and teach you the rudiments of education. You remember
that time, Cora?" inquired Mr. Fabian, as he held the reins with a
slackened grasp, so that the horse jogged slowly along the wooded road
between the foot of the mountain and the banks of the river, under the
star-lit sky.
"I remember perfectly," answered the girl.
"Well, business took me to New York about that time, and I thought it a
good opportunity to hunt up a governess for you. So I advertised in the
New York papers, giving my address at an uptown office, while my own
business kept me down town.
"The first letter I opened interested me so much that I gave my whole
attention to that first, and so it happened that I had no occasion to
touch the others. It was from one Ann White, who described herself as a
motherless and fatherless girl of sixteen, a stranger in this country,
who was trying to get employment as assistant teacher, governess, or
copyist, and who was well fitted to take sole charge of a little girl
seven years old.
"Perhaps this might not have impressed me, but she went on to write that
she had not a friend in the whole country, that she was utterly
destitute and desolate, and begged me for Heaven's mercy not to throw
her letter aside, but to see her and give her a trial. She inclosed her
photograph, not, as she wrote, from any vanity, but that I might see her
face and take pity on her.
"Cora, there was an air of childish frankness and simplicity about her
letter that was well illustrated by her photograph. It was that of a
sweet-smiling baby face; a sunny, innocent beautiful face. I answered
the letter immediately, asking for her address, that I might call and
see her. The next day I received her answer, thanking me with
enthusiastic earnestness for my prompt attention to her note, and giving
me the number and street of her residence in Harlem. I got on a Second
Avenue car and rode out to Harlem; got off at the terminus, walked up a
cross street and walked some distance to a bijou of a brown cottage,
standing in shaded grounds, with sunny gleams and flower beds, and half
covered by creeping roses, clematis, wisteria, and all that.
"I went in, and was received by the beautiful being that you have known
as Rose Flowers. She was dressed in some misty, cloud-like pale blue
fabric that set off her blonde beauty to perfection. After we were
seated and had talked some time, I telling her what light duties would
be required of her--only the care of one good little girl of seven years
old, and of a very mild old lady who was the only lady in the house, and
of the old gentleman who was the head of the family, strict but just in
all his dealings; and of our country house in the mountains and our town
house in the State capital--and she expressing the greatest and frankest
anxiety to become a member of such a happy, amiable, prosperous family,
and declaring with childish boasting that she was quite competent to
perform all the duties expected of her and would perform them
conscientiously, I suddenly asked her for her references.
"'I--I have not a friend in this world,' she said; and then in a timid
voice, she asked: 'Are references indispensable?'
"'Of course,' I answered
"'Then the Lord help me! Nothing is left but the river. The river won't
require references;' and with that she buried her little golden-haired
head in the cushions of the sofa and burst into a perfect storm of sobs
and tears. Now, Cora, what in the deuce was a man to do? I had never
seen anything like that in all my life before. I had never seen a woman
in such a fit before. All this was strange and horrible to me.
"I am a middling strong old fellow, but that beautiful girl's despair
upset me, and I never could hear any one hint suicide, and she talked of
the river. The river would receive her without references. The river was
kinder than her own fellow creatures! The river would give her a home
and rest and peace! She only wanted to do honest work for her living,
but human beings would not even let her work for them without
references! And I declare to you, Cora, she was not acting, as you might
suspect. She was in deadly earnest. Her sobs shook her whole frame.
"At last I myself behaved like an ass. I went and knelt down beside her
so as to get quite close to her, and I began to comfort her. I told her
not to mind about the references; that she might have me for a reference
all the days of her life; that she should have the situation at
Rockhold, where I would convey her and introduce her on my own
responsibility.
"While I spoke to her I laid my hand on the little golden-haired head
and smoothed it all the time. Out of pity, Cora, I assure you on my
honor, out of pity. After a while her sobs seemed to subside slowly. I
told her that her face was to me a sufficient recommendation in her
favor, and all-sufficient testimonial of character; but that I must have
her confidence in exchange for my own.
"You see, Cora, I was very sorry for the poor, pretty creature, and was
really anxious to befriend her; but also my curiosity was keenly piqued.
I wished to know her private history, and so I assured her that she
should have the position she wanted on the condition of telling me her
antecedents.
"At last she yielded, and told me the story of her short, willful life.
This, then, was her poor, little, pathetic story.
"Her name was Ann White. She was the daughter of Amos White, an English
curate, living in a remote village in Northumberland, and of his first
wife, who had died during the infancy of her youngest child, Ann, a year
after which her father had married again. Ann's step-mother was one of
the most beautiful women in England, and--one of the most discontented,
as the wife of a widowed clergyman who was old enough to be her father,
who had three sons and two daughters by a former marriage, and who was
trying to support his family on a hundred pounds a year. Yet, so long as
her father lived, Ann's childhood was happy. But her father, who had
been a consumptive, also died when Ann was about seven years old. Then
the family was broken up. The three step-sons went to seek their
fortunes in New Zealand. The eldest step-daughter had been married and
had gone to London a few months before her father's death; the younger
step-daughter went to live with that married sister. Ann and her
step-mother were permitted to remain at the parsonage until the
successor of Amos White could be appointed. At last the new curate
came--a handsome and accomplished man--Rev. Raphael Rosslynn. He was a
bachelor, without near relatives. He called on the Widow White and at
once set her heart at ease by begging her not to trouble herself to
leave the parsonage, but to remain there for the present at least, and
take him as a boarder. He was perfectly frank with the lovely widow, and
told her that he was engaged to his own cousin, and that as soon as he
should get a living promised him on the death of the present incumbent,
and which was worth twelve hundred pounds a year, he should marry, but
that he could not allow himself to anticipate happiness that must rise
on a grave. But in the course of the year that which might have been
expected happened, the young widow, who had never cared for her elderly
first husband, fell desperately in love with her lodger, who was not
very slow to respond, for her grace, beauty and allurements attracted,
bewildered, and bedeviled him, so that he forgot or deplored his
plighted vows to his good little cousin. To shorten the story, the
cousin released him. In a few days the curate and the widow were
married. Ann was utterly neglected, ignored, and forgotten. Her lessons,
which, before the advent of the handsome curate, had been the widow's
care, were now suspended. Time went on, and these ardent lovers cooled
off. Not that their youth or health or beauty waned; not at all; but
that their illusions were fading. Yet, as often happens, as love cooled,
jealousy warmed to life--each one conscious of indifference toward the
other, yet resented a corresponding indifference in the other. As years
went on, six children were born to this unhappy pair, whom not the Lord
but the devil had joined together, and with their increasing family came
increasing poverty. It was hard to support a growing household on one
hundred pounds a year.
"In the seventh year of their marriage, in desperation, the Reverend
Raphael advertised his ability and readiness to 'prepare young men for
college.' He obtained but one pupil one Alfred Whyte, the son of a
retired brewer. You perceive that he had the same surname with the young
Ann, but it was spelled differently--with a _y_, instead of an _i_, as
her name was. He seems to have been a fine, hearty, good natured young
fellow, about twenty years of age, with a short, stout form, a round,
red face, and dark eyes and hair. He hated study, but loved children,
animals, and out-door sports. It was in the course of nature that he
should fall in love with the fair fifteen-year-old beauty Ann White.
"She returned his affection because since her father's death he was the
only human being who had ever been kind to her. The first year that he
spent at the parsonage was the happiest year Ann had ever known. Before
it drew to an end, however, their happiness was clouded. The young man
had over and over again assured the girl of his love for her, and at
last he asked her to marry him. She consented. Then he wrote and asked
permission of his father to wed the curate's step-daughter.
"The answer might have been anticipated. The purse-proud retired brewer,
who had dreams of his only son and heir going into Parliament and
marrying some impoverished nobleman's daughter, wrote two furious
letters, one to his son, commanding his immediate return home, and
another to the Rev. Raphael Rosslynn, reproaching him with having
entrapped his pupil into an engagement with his pauper step-daughter.
"We can judge the effect of these letters upon the peace of the
parsonage.
"The Reverend Raphael commanded his pupil into his presence, and after
severely censuring him for his conduct in 'betraying the confidence of
the family who had received him into its bosom,' he requested that
Master Whyte should leave the house with all convenient speed.
"The youth urged that he had meant no harm and had done no harm, that he
was honestly in love with the young lady, and had honestly asked leave
to marry her, and that he certainly would marry her--
"'Though mammy and daddy and all gang mad.'
"Mr. Rosslynn referred him to his father's letter and ordered him to
depart. And then the reverend gentleman went to his wife's room and
bitterly reproached her that her forward girl had been the cause of his
losing his pupil and eighty pounds a year.
"She told him that the fault was his own; that he should never have
received a young man as a resident pupil in the house where there was a
young girl.
"A fierce quarrel ensued, which was ended at last by the reverend
gentleman going out and banging the door behind him with a force that
shook the house, and in a state of mind that rendered him singularly
unfit to read the prayers for the sick beside the bed of a dying
parishioner to whom he was urgently summoned.
"Mrs. Rosslynn immediately hastened to wreak her vengeance on her
step-daughter. She set her teeth as she seized the unlucky girl, whom
she found at work in the kitchen, pushed her roughly on into the narrow
passage up the steep stairs and into the little back loft that the child
called her own bedroom.
"Here she took a firmer grip upon the girl, and with a dog whip that she
had hastily snatched from the hat rack in passing, she lashed the
hapless creature over back and shoulder.
"Ann never struggled or cried out, but held her tongue in fierce wrath
and stubborn endurance. Could that woman, the victim of all ungovernable
passions, have but known what she did, or foreseen its results!
"At last she ceased, pushed the bruised and wounded child away from her,
sank panting to a chair, and as soon as she recovered her breath, began
to insult and abuse the orphan child of her deceased husband, charging
her with disgracing the house by improper conduct, of which the girl had
never even dreamed; accusing her of causing the loss of their pupil and
the income derived from him, and reproaching her for making discord
between herself (Mrs. Rosslynn) and her husband.
"Ann replied by not one word.
"At length the maddened woman, having talked herself out of breath, got
up, left the room, and locked the door, not on her victim alone, but on
all the evil spirits she had raised from Tartarus and left with the
girl.
"Ann sank upon the bed, weeping, moaning, and grinding her teeth, her
body prostrated by pain, her soul filled with bitter wrath and scorn
toward one whom she should rather have been led to love and honor. In
the fiery torture of her flesh and the humiliation of her spirit she
uttered but these piteous words:
"'Oh, my own mother!--oh, my lost father! do you see your child?'
"For more than an hour she lay there before the fierce smarting and
burning of her scourged flesh began to subside. The short November
afternoon darkened into night. No one came near her. The hour for supper
passed. No one called her to the meal. She heard the family passing to
their rooms. She heard her mother putting the other children to bed--a
duty that she herself had hitherto performed. At last all sounds died
away in the house, and she knew that all the inmates had retired, and
the lights were out. She was meditating to run away; she did not know in
what direction, or to what end, farther than to escape from the home
that was hateful to her.
"Evil spirits were with her, suggesting many desperate thoughts; at
length they infused a deadly, horrible temptation to a deed of
self-destruction so ghastly that its discovery should appal the family,
the parish, and the whole world; that should cover her tormentors with
shame, reproach and infamy.
"She sprang up from her bed and went to search in the drawer of a little
old wooden stand, until she found a half page of note paper and a bit of
lead pencil.
"She took them out and wrote to her persecutors, saying that she was
going to throw herself--not into the sea, nor from a precipice, because
both earth and sea give up their dead--but into the quicksands, which
never give up anything; they, her tormentors, should never even see
again the body they had bruised and torn and degraded; and she prayed
that the Lord would ever deal by them as they had dealt with her.
"It must have been near midnight when she heard a tap at her window, so
light that at first she thought it was made by a large raindrop; but
presently her name was softly called by a voice that she recognized.
Then she understood it all, and her thoughts of the quicksands vanished.
"Her room was a small one in the rear of the house, immediately over the
back kitchen, and her back window opened upon the roof of the wood shed
behind the kitchen. She went and hoisted the window, and there on the
roof of the wood shed stood Alfred Whyte.
"He told her that he had taken leave of the ogre and the ogress hours
before, and they thought he was off to London by the four o'clock mail;
but that he had gone no farther than the railway station, where he had
bought a ticket, and had gone on the platform, as if to wait for his
train; but when it came up, instead of taking his place on it, he had
slipped away in the confusion of its arrival and had hidden himself in
the woods on the other side of the road, where he had waited until it
was dark, when he had come back to watch the parsonage until every one
should have gone to bed, so that he could get speech with Ann.
"And then he asked her if she were 'game for a bolt?"
"She did not understand him; but when he next spoke plainly, and
inquired if she would run away with him and be married, she answered
promptly that she would.
"He told her to get ready quickly, and to dress warmly, for the night
was damp and cold, and to tie up a little bundle of things that she
might need on the journey; but not to take much, because he had plenty
of money, and could buy her all she needed.
"'Much;' Poor little thing, she had not much to take! She put on her
best dress--a well-worn blue serge--a coarse, black cloth walking
jacket, and a little straw hat with a faded blue ribbon. She had no
gloves. She tied up a hair brush, worn nearly to the wood, a tooth brush
not much better, the half of a broken dressing comb, and one clean linen
collar, in a small pocket handkerchief, and she was all ready for her
wedding trip.
"He told her to bolt her door before she came out, because that would
take the ogres some little while to force it open, and would give the
fugitives a better start.
"Ann did everything her boy lover directed, and finally stepped out of
the window on to the roof below, and joined him. He let down the window,
and closed the shutters with a spring that securely fastened them.
"That, he told her, would certainly give them a longer start, for it
would take an hour at least to force the room open and discover her
flight.
"Then they left the parsonage together.
"She had forgotten all about the parting note of malediction which she
had left behind her on the stand, as she stepped along the lane leading
to the highway.
"He asked her to take his arm, and when they reached the public road, he
inquired if she were game for a ten mile walk.
"She told him that she could walk to the end of the world with him,
because she was so happy to be beside the only one on earth who had ever
been kind to her--since her father's death.
"Then he explained the steps that he had taken, and must still take, to
elude pursuit; how that he had gone to the railway station and bought a
first class ticket for the four o'clock express to London, and
afterward, when the train came up, he had mingled with the crowd getting
off and getting on, and so eluded observation, and had slipped away and
hidden himself in the thicket until dark, so as to make every one
concerned believe that he had gone off by the mail train alone to
London.
"Now he told her that they must trudge straight on ten miles north, to
take the train to Glasgow; so that while people were hunting for them in
the south, they would be safe in the north.
"As they walked on he told her that he wanted to get away from England
and see the world--the new world across the ocean. He had seen Europe
summer after summer, traveling with his father and mother on the
Continent. Now he wanted to see America; and asked her if she did not
also.
"She told him that she wanted to see every place that he wanted to see,
and to go everywhere he wanted to go, for that he was the only friend
she had in all the wide world.
"So they walked on for about three hours, and then, about two o'clock in
the morning, they reached the little railway station of Skelton. They
had to wait two hours for the parliamentary train, which came heavily
puffing in about five o'clock on that November morning.
"Young Whyte took second class tickets, and led his closely veiled
companion to her seat on the train. And they moved off.
"They reached Glasgow about ten o'clock the next day, and found that
there was a steamer bound for New York, to sail at noon. No time was to
be lost, so they both went to the agency together, represented
themselves as a newly married pair, and engaged the only stateroom to
be procured--which happened to be in the second cabin. Their tickets
were filled in with the names of Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Whyte--which indeed
constituted a legal marriage in Scotland, where a marriageable pair of
lovers have only to declare themselves man and wife, in the presence of
competent witnesses, to be as lawfully married as if the ceremony had
been performed by the Archbishop of Canterbury in his own cathedral.
"They took possession of their stateroom on the Caledonian, which sailed
at noon of the same day, and in due time arrived at New York.
"They spent two days at an uptown hotel, and then took the pretty
cottage at Harlem, in which they lived for several months. Ann's
boy-husband often told her that she grew prettier every day, and he
seemed to grow fonder of her every day. He supplied her with a nicer
outfit of clothing and more pocket money than she had ever had in her
poverty-stricken life, and made her much happier every way than she had
ever been before, as long as his money lasted.
"He had left England with nearly one hundred pounds in his pocket--the
amount of his half-yearly allowance.
"On his arrival in New York, he had written to his father and confessed
his marriage with his tutor's step-daughter and begged forgiveness
and--remittances.
"Ann declined to write to her step-mother or the curate, declaring that
she preferred that they should believe that she had been driven by their
cruelty to bury herself in the quicksands, and that they should suffer
all the remorse of conscience and reprobation of society that their
conduct toward her deserved.
"But weeks passed, on and no letter filled with blessings and bank
notes came from the offended and obdurate father, though the boy
constantly assured his girl-wife that the expected epistle would surely
come in time, for he was the 'old man's' only son, whom he would not be
likely to discard.
"Meanwhile their money was running low. The youth was anxious to travel
and see the new world, and to take his bride with him, but he could not
do so without funds. At the end of six weeks after he had written the
first letter to his father he wrote a second, but received no answer;
later still he wrote a third, with no better success.
"They had gone a little into debt, in order to eke out their little
ready money until the longed-for letters of credit should come from
England; but at the end of six months credit and cash were nearly
exhausted.
"One morning in May the boy-husband took leave of the girl-wife, saying,
as he kissed her good-by, that he was going down into the city to see if
he could get some work to do.
"Without the least misgiving, she received his farewell kiss, and saw
him depart--watched him all the way down the street, until he got to
Second Avenue and boarded a down-town car.
"Then she re-entered the little gate, and began to tend the jonquils and
hyacinths that were just coming into bloom in her little flower garden.
She did not expect to see him until night, nor--did she see him even
then. When the little gate opened at eight o'clock and a man came up the
walk leading to the front door at which she stood, he was not her
husband, but the letter carrier, who put a letter in her hand and went
away.
"She ran into the house, and lighted the gas to read her letter. Though
it gave her a shock, it did not shake her faith in her boy.
"The letter told her, in effect, that Alfred Whyte, when he left her
that morning, had started to go to England in the only way by which he
could get there--that is, by working his passage as a deck hand on board
an outward bound ship; that he had decided on this course so as to get a
personal interview with his father, to whom he would go as a penitent
prodigal son; for he was sure of obtaining by this means forgiveness,
and assistance that would enable him to return and bring his little wife
back to England, where they would thenceforth live in comfort and
luxury; that the reason he had not confided to her his intention of
making the voyage was because he dreaded opposition from her that might
have led him to abandon the one plan by which he hoped to better their
condition.
"He concluded by entreating her not to think for one instant that he
intended to desert her, who was dearer to him than his own life, but to
trust in him as he trusted in her. In a postscript he told her where to
find the small balance of money they had left, as he had only taken
enough for his car fare to the city. In a second postscript he promised
to write by every opportunity. In a third and last postscript he begged
her to keep up her heart.
"It seemed a frank letter, yet it was reticent upon one point--the name
of the ship on which he had sailed. This omission might have been
accidental. It certainly did not raise any doubt of the boy's good faith
in the mind of the girl.
"She cried a great deal over the separation from her lad, and she made a
confidant of the elderly Irishwoman who was her sole servant.
"After two weeks, Ann began to watch daily for the letter carrier, in
hope of getting a letter from Alfred; but day after day, week after
week, passed and none came. But there came news of the wreck of the
Porpoise, which had sailed from New York for London on the very day that
Alfred Whyte had left the country--and which had gone down in a storm in
mid-ocean with all on board.
"But as numerous ships had left New York on that day bound for various
British ports, it was impossible to discover whether the boy was on
board, or if he shipped under his own name or an assumed one.
"Ann cried more than ever for a few days, but then seemed to give up her
lad for lost, and to resign herself to the 'inevitable.'
"She wrote to Mr. Alfred Whyte, Senior, but got no reply to her letter;
again and again she wrote with no better success. The little balance of
money left by her boy-husband was all gone. She began to sell off the
trifles of jewelry that he had given her.
"One morning the letter carrier left a letter with a London postmark
containing a bill of exchange for a hundred pounds, and not one word
besides.
"Had it come from her boy-husband, or from his father? She could not
tell.
"Well, to be brief, she never saw nor heard of him again. She lived
comfortably with her motherly old servant, enjoyed life thoroughly and
grew more beautiful every day, and this fool's paradise lasted as long
as her money did. Before her last dollar was gone, she saw the
advertisement in the _Pursuivant_ for a nursery governess, and answered
it, as has been told.
"This, my dear Cora, is the substance of the story told me by Ann White
on the day that I called on her in answer to her letter. What do you
think of it?" inquired Mr. Fabian when he had finished his narrative.
"I think the cruel neglect of her step-parents and the sufferings of her
childhood accountable for all her faults, and I feel very sorry for
her, notwithstanding that she seems to be a very heartless animal,"
replied Corona.
"That is the secret of the wonderful preservation of her youth and
beauty even up to this present time. Nothing wears a woman out as fast
as her own heart."
"You engaged her as you promised to do, but why did you introduce her at
Rockhold as a single girl, and why under an alias?" gravely inquired
Corona.
"I introduced her as a single girl at her own request because of her
extreme youth and her timidity. She naturally shrank from being known as
a discarded wife or a doubtful widow. Besides, I never did say she was a
single girl. I merely presented her as Rose Flowers, and left it to be
inferred from her baby face that she was so."
"But why Rose Flowers when her name was Ann White?"
"What a cross-questioner you are, Corona! but I will answer you. Again
it was by her own desire that I presented her as Rose Flowers, which was
not an alias, as she explained to me, but a part of her true name. She
had been baptized as Rose Anna Flowers, which was the maiden name of her
grandmother, her father's mother."
Cora might have asked another question, not so easily answered, if she
had known the circumstances to which it related, namely: why Mr. Fabian
had fabricated that false story of the young governess which he palmed
upon his parents; but, in fact, Cora, at that time a child seven years
old, had never heard of it. But she made another inquiry.
"What became of Rose Flowers after she left us? Did she really go to
another place? Who was--Captain Stillwater?"
"Mr. Fabian drove slowly and thoughtfully on without answering her
question until she had repeated it. Then he said:
"Cora, my dear, that is a story I cannot tell you. Let it be enough for
me to say, the Stillwater episode in the life of this lady is the ground
upon which I forbid my wife to visit her and object to my niece
associating with her."
"Does Violet know the Stillwater story?"
"No; not so much of it even as you have heard. Now, look here, Cora, you
think it inconsistent perhaps that I should have brought this woman to
Rockhold years ago to become your governess, and now, when she is my
father's wife, object to your intimacy with her. In the first instance
she has been far, very far, 'more sinned against than sinning;' she had
been very imprudent, that was all. She was really the wife, by Scotch
law, of the boy she ran away with and then lost. I saw nothing in her
case that ought to prevent her entrance into a respectable family, and
Heaven knows I pitied her and tried to save her by bringing her to
Rockhold. I saved her only for a few years. After she left us--but
there, I cannot tell you that story! You must not be intimate with her."
"Yet she is my grandfather's wife!"
"An irreparable misfortune. I can't expose her life to him; such a blow
to his pride might be his death, at his age. No! events must take their
course; but I hope he will not take her to any place where she is likely
to be recognized. Nor do I think he will. He is aging fast, and will be
likely to live quietly at Rockhold."
"And I think she also would avoid such risks. She was terribly
frightened when she recognized the Dean of Olivet. Was he really her
stepfather, the once poor curate?"
"Yes. You see while they were lionizing him in the Eastern cities, his
portrait, with a short biographical notice, was published in one of the
illustrated weeklies, where I read of him, and identified him by
comparing notes with what I had heard."
"How came he to rise so high?"
"Oh, he was a learned divine and eloquent orator. He was well connected,
too. It would seem that a very few months after his step-daughter's
flight he was inducted into that rich living for which he had been
waiting so many years. From that position his rise was slow indeed,
covering a period of twenty years, until a few months ago, when he was
made Dean of Olivet."
"To think that a man capable of quarreling with his wife and ill-using
their step-child should fill so sacred a position in the church!"
exclaimed Cora.
"Yes; but you see, my dear, the church is his profession, not his
vocation. He is a brilliant pulpit orator, with influential friends; but
every brilliant pulpit orator is not necessarily a saint. And as for his
quarreling with his wife and ill-using their step-daughter, we have
heard but one side of that story."
When they entered the Rockhold drawing room they found Mrs. Rockharrt
alone. She arose and came forward and received them with a smile.
"Your grandfather, my dear," she explained to Cora, "came home later
than usual from North End, and very much more than usually fatigued.
Immediately after dinner he lay down and I left him asleep."
"Where is Uncle Clarence?" inquired Corona.
"He remains at the works for the night. Will you have this chair, love?"
said Rose, pulling forward a luxurious "sleepy hollow."
"No, thank you. I must go to my room and change my dress. Will you
excuse me for half an hour, Uncle Fabian?" inquired Cora.
"Most willingly, my dear," replied Mr. Fabian, with a very pleased
look. Cora left the room.
"I will go with you," exclaimed Rose, turning pale and starting up to
follow the young lady.
"No. You will not," said Mr. Fabian, in a tone of authority, as he laid
his hand heavily on the woman's shoulder. "Sit down. I have something to
say to you."