CHAPTER II.
Ignorant of the change in her husband's plans, which was to bring
him back to Paris a day before the time that had been fixed for
his return, Sister Rose had left her solitary home to spend the
evening with her brother. They had sat talking together long
after sunset, and had let the darkness steal on them insensibly,
as people will who are only occupied with quiet, familiar
conversation. Thus it happened, by a curious coincidence, that
just as Lomaque was blowing out his candles at the office Rose
was lighting the reading-lamp at her brother's lodgings.
Five years of disappointment and sorrow had sadly changed her to
outward view. Her face looked thinner and longer; the once
delicate red and white of her complexion was gone; her figure had
wasted under the influence of some weakness, which had already
made her stoop a little when she walked. Her manner had lost its
maiden shyness, only to become unnaturally quiet and subdued. Of
all the charms which had so fatally, yet so innocently, allured
her heartless husband, but one remained--the winning gentleness
of her voice. It might be touched now and then with a note of
sadness, but the soft attraction of its even, natural tone still
remained. In the marring of all other harmonies, this one harmony
had been preserved unchanged. Her brother, though his face was
careworn, and his manner sadder than of old, looked less altered
from his former self.
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