there is but one thingfor you to do
"How can I help?–I am mad with joy–hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!""No! no! no! no! no!""What is the matter?""And must I stab you worse than all your enemies have stabbed you?"sighed Rose, and tears of womanly pity now streamed down her cheeks.
Camille’s mind began to misgive him. What was become of Josephine?
she did not appear. He faltered out, "Your mother is well; all arewell I hope. Oh, where is she?" and receiving no reply, began totremble visibly with the fear of some terrible calamity.
Rose, with a sister fainting close by, and this poor lover tremblingbefore her, lost all self-command, and began to wring her hands and cry wildly. "Camille," she almost screamed, "there is but one thingfor you to do; leave Beaurepaire on the instant: fly from it; it isno place for you.""She is dead," said Camille, very quietly.
When he said that, with an unnatural and monotonous calm such asprecedes deliberate suicide, it flashed in one moment across Rose that it was much best he should think so.
She did not reply; but she drooped her head and let him think it.
"She would have come to me ere this if she was alive," said he.
"You are all in white: they mourn in white for angels like her, thatgo to heaven, virgins. Oh! I was blind. You might have told me at once; you see I can bear it. What does it matter to one who lovesas I love? It is only to give her one more proof I lived only forher. I would have died a hundred times but for my promise to her.
Yes, I am coming, love; I am coming."He fell on his knees and smiled, and whispered, "I am coming,Josephine, I am coming."A sob and a moan as of a creature dying in anguish answered him.
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