CHAPTER LI

FACE TO FACE

"If I could only understand!"--this was Rosalie's constant cry in these
weeks wherein she lay ill and prostrate after her father's burial. Once
and once only had she met Charley alone, though she knew that he was
keeping watch over her. She had first seen him the day her father was
buried, standing apart from the people, his face sorrowful, his eyes
heavy, his figure bowed.

The occasion of their meeting alone was the first night of her return,
when the Notary and Charley had kept watch beside her father's body.

She had gone into the little hallway, and had looked into the room of
death. The Notary was sound asleep in his arm-chair, but Charley sat
silent and moveless, his eyes gazing straight before him. She murmured
his name, and though it was only to herself, not even a whisper, he got
up quickly and came to the hall, where she stood grief-stricken, yet with
a smile of welcome, of forgiveness, of confidence. As she put out her
hand to him, and his swallowed it, she could not but say to him--so
contrary is the heart of woman, so does she demand a Yes by asserting a
No, and hunger for the eternal assurance--she could not but say:

"You do not love me--now."

It was but a whisper, so faint and breathless that only the heart of love
could hear it. There was no answer in words, for some one was stirring
beyond Rosalie in the dark, and a great figure heaved through the kitchen
doorway, but his hand crushed hers in his own; his heart said to her, "My