What was become of Josephine? she
did not appear. He faltered out, "Your mother is well; all are well
I hope. Oh, where is she?" and receiving no reply, began to tremble
visibly with the fear of some terrible calamity.
Rose, with a sister fainting close by, and this poor lover trembling
before her, lost all self-command, and began to wring her hands and cry
wildly. "Camille," she almost screamed, "there is but one thing for you
to do; leave Beaurepaire on the instant: fly from it; it is no place for
you."
"She is dead," said Camille, very quietly.
When he said that, with an unnatural and monotonous calm such as
precedes 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, that go 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 loves as I love? It is
only to give her one more proof I lived only for her.
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