Page:"The Mummy" Volume 2.djvu/90

82 friend, as he did to-day, if the most insiduous arts had not been practised to win him." "And has he done so?" asked Rosabella, her eyes sparkling with joy. "Has he done so?" repeated the duke bitterly; "no doubt you know it but too well. Also that the prosing Lord Maysworth, the enlightened Lord Noodle, and the intelligent Lord Doodle, have enlisted their empty heads and long purses upon your side."

"Have they?" cried Rosabella, transport brightening every feature.

"Oh, Rosabella!" exclaimed the duke, passion giving way to agony, and torrents of tears streaming down his aged face; "that look of affected astonishment is intolerable! You must have known all this! I am a poor, weak, old man! there needed not such plotting to deceive me. It breaks my heart to find you guilty of hypocrisy."

Rosabella was affected by her uncle's tears: all his former kindness rushed upon her mind, and Nature resuming her powerful influence,