Her
ill-cut, out-of-date dress, the cheap suit of the hunchbacked boy,
who limped patiently along, helped by his crutch, suggested possible
explanations which were without doubt connected with the thought
which had risen in Bettina's mind, as she had been driven through the
broken-hinged entrance gate. What extraordinary disposal was being
made of Rosy's money? But her each glance at her sister also suggested
complication upon complication.
The singular half hour under the trees by the pool, spent, after the
first hysteric moments were over, in vague exclaimings and questions,
which seemed half frightened and all at sea, had gradually shown her
that she was talking to a creature wholly other than the Rosalie who had
so well known and loved them all, and whom they had so well loved and
known. They did not know this one, and she did not know them, she was
even a little afraid of the stir and movement of their life and being.
The Rosy they had known seemed to be imprisoned within the wall the
years of her separated life had built about her. At each breath she drew
Bettina saw how long the years had been to her, and how far her home had
seemed to lie away, so far that it could not touch her, and was only
a sort of dream, the recalling of which made her suddenly begin to cry
again every few minutes.
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