Page:"The Mummy" Volume 2.djvu/52

44 happier now than ever they were before in their lives."

"If you are right," said Sir Ambrose, "and they are now in Egypt; as they have lost their balloon, they may be even in want of necessaries."

"And it is very right they should be so," replied the duke; "what business had they to go away?"

The hours of this eventful day rolled on heavily with Rosabella; the important consequences of the struggle she was about to engage in forcibly impressed her mind. Ruin must inevitably ensue if she failed, and even if she succeeded, her path seemed strewed with thorns. The anxiety natural to the intrigues she was about to be involved in, also hung about her. Though haughty and vindictive, Rosabella was not naturally deceitful. Indeed the very violence and impetuosity of her passions rendered it difficult for her to appear otherwise than she really was. The secret intercourse, however, which, through the intervention of Marianne, she had long maintained with Father Morris,