"Madame Raynal bears up, for the sake of others. You will
not, however, see her: she keeps her room. My daughter Rose is taking
a walk, I believe." After some polite inquiries, and sympathy with his
accident, the baroness retired to indulge her grief, and Edouard thus
liberated ran in search of his beloved.
He met her at the gate of the Pleasaunce, but not alone. She was walking
with an officer, a handsome, commanding, haughty, brilliant officer. She
was walking by his side, talking earnestly to him.
An arrow of ice shot through young Riviere; and then came a feeling of
death at his heart, a new symptom in his young life.
The next moment Rose caught sight of him. She flushed all over and
uttered a little exclamation, and she bounded towards him like a little
antelope, and put out both her hands at once. He could only give her
one.
"Ah!" she cried with an accent of heavenly pity, and took his hand with
both hers.
This was like the meridian sun coming suddenly on a cold place. He was
all happiness.
When Josephine heard he was come her eye flashed, and she said quickly,
"I will come down to welcome him--dear Edouard!"
The sisters looked at one another.
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