Love is Triumphant Read Free Page B

like someone to write to me."
    "It will soon be your turn," Miss Draycott said.
    "You must keep such a beautiful letter."
    "Of course I will keep it. I keep all Arthur's letters and when I feel depressed and miserable, I read them over and over again."
    Rosina helped her to finish dressing, and waved her off. When it was time to go to bed that night she lay awake, thinking of her friend and how madly in love she was.
    Then she thought of Sir John and heard again the sudden bitterness in his voice when he spoke of love.
    What had he meant by it?
    Had he been in love with some girl who had not loved him in return?
    She was suddenly aware that he had a whole life that was hidden from her. In reality she knew almost nothing about him.
    She wondered what her own lover would be like, and when he would arrive in her life. Would he be charming, handsome and passionately devoted to her?
    She tried to picture him, on one knee before her, offering his heart and a diamond ring.
    But all she could see was Sir John glaring at her and calling her a silly child.
    She turned over and thumped the pillow in frustration.

     

CHAPTER TWO
    As the night wore on Rosina's thoughts were more and more with Miss Draycott and her lover. What was happening now? Had he proposed? Were they celebrating their future happiness?
    She had once seen them together, although even Miss Draycott did not know about that. She had been buying some oddments in the village, accompanied by a couple of the other pupils, for girls were not allowed to go to the village alone.
    They had been thinking of going into a teashop, and Rosina had looked inside one as they passed. There she had seen Miss Draycott and a very handsome young man, sitting together in the corner, absorbed in each other.
    Arthur Woodward had been smiling in a way that added greatly to his looks. But it had been Miss Draycott herself who held Rosina's attention. The way she held her lover's hand, the fervour with which she gazed at him, above all her total, enraptured stillness, all these things showed Rosina that this was a woman in the grip of a death defying passion. This man was her life, her world. She wanted no other, and could have no other. Without him there would be nothing.
    As for him, he was devoting himself to her
    charmingly, but he was not lost in her as she was lost in him. The chasm between what he felt for her and what she felt for him was very plain.
    Rosina had turned away suddenly to face the girls with her.
    "Not this place," she said. "I don't like it."
    "But we want some tea," they had protested.
    "We must find somewhere else," she had said firmly, determined to protect Miss Draycott from prying eyes.
    She had meant to tell Miss Draycott what she had seen, and they could smile about it together. But strangely she found that she could not speak of it. She had seen something she had not been meant to see, something deeply private and secret. And she knew she must keep silent.
    But she could never forget what she had witnessed. Now she knew how a woman looked when she loved a man body and soul, more than her own life, so that nothing but him existed in the whole world. The intensity of it was almost frightening.
    All this came back to her as she lay listening for Miss Draycott's return. When at last it came she knew there had been no proposal. Her friend walked slowly as though there were a heaviness in her heart, and something about that sound warned Rosina not to go to her, but to leave her to grieve in private.
    *
    Over the days that followed Rosina found that although Miss Draycott was meeting her lover on every possible occasion, there were long days and nights when she did not see him.
    But the letters arrived almost every morning.
    They kept her happy even though Rosina was well aware that the future seemed inevitably dark and empty, since he never mentioned marriage.
    'If I could see him,' Rosina thought, 'I would tell him that he should marry Miss Draycott and somehow they