To
her poetic fancy he seemed the noblest and bravest of created beings;
and she wondered at her own good fortune when she saw him by her side,
fond and devoted, consent to sacrifice all the delights of his free,
roving life for her sake.
"I don't think such happiness _can_ last, George," she said to him one
day.
That vague foreboding was soon to be too sadly realized! The sunshine
and the bright summer peace had promised to last for ever; but a dark
cloud arose which in one moment overshadowed all that summer sky, and
Rosamond Jernam's happiness vanished as if it had been indeed a dream.
CHAPTER XIX.
A FAMILIAR TOKEN.
Joseph Duncombe had been absent from River View Cottage little more
than a month, and the life of its inmates had been smooth and
changeless as the placid surface of a lake. They sought no society but
that of each other. Existence glided by, and the eventless days left
little to remember except the sweet tranquillity of a happy home.
It was on a wet, dull, unsettled July day that Rosamond Jernam found
her life changed all at once, while the cause for that dark change
remained a mystery to her.
After idling away half the morning, Captain Jernam discovered that he
had an important business letter to write to the captain of his trading
ship, the "Pizarro.
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