happy against your will,' she said, in another voice, and an English
accent. 'The mischief is done, Van. If you do not want Rose Jocelyn to
love you, you must undo it in your own way. I am not easily deceived.
On the morning I went to her house in town, she took me aside, and spoke
to me. Not a confession in words. The blood in her cheeks, when I
mentioned you, did that for her. Everything about you she must know--how
you bore your grief, and all. And not in her usual free manner, but
timidly, as if she feared a surprise, or feared to be wakened to the
secret in her bosom she half suspects--"Tell him!" she said, "I hope he
will not forget me."'

The Countess was interrupted by a great sob; for the picture of frank
Rose Jocelyn changed, and soft, and, as it were, shadowed under a veil of
bashful regard for him, so filled the young man with sorrowful
tenderness, that he trembled, and was as a child.

Marking the impression she had produced on him, and having worn off that
which he had produced on her, the Countess resumed the art in her style
of speech, easier to her than nature.

'So the sweetest of Roses may be yours, dear Van; and you have her in a
gold setting, to wear on your heart. Are you not enviable? I will not--
no, I will not tell you she is perfect. I must fashion the sweet young
creature. Though I am very ready to admit that she is much improved by
this--shall I call it, desired consummation?'

Evan could listen no more. Such a struggle was rising in his breast: the
effort to quench what the Countess had so shrewdly kindled; passionate
desire to look on Rose but for one lightning flash: desire to look on
her, and muffled sense of shame twin-born with it: wild love and leaden