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“Under the circumstances, I suppose it is.”

“Were you happy with them?”

“Oh, yes! As happy as the day, when we were in prosperity. But this last year has been nothing but shadow and poverty, and I don’t think I ever realised how many things I had to be thankful for till they were all gone.”

“The gift of speech does not compensate for all things, then?”

“I don’t know. I have had it so short a time.”

“You are longing for freedom, and can find nothing to compensate for the bitterness of its loss. Is not that it?”

“I don’t think it is only that. My aunt was only buried the day before yesterday. I should be very callous and ungrateful if I could forget her so readily.”

“Yet you cannot deny the events of the past day have put a great gulf betwixt you and her.”

“Yes; I could think she had died a year ago along with uncle. Poor thing! It would have been so much better if she had done so, I think.”

“How long do you think your term of imprisonment will last?”

Rosalie shook her head.

“I don’t know. The future has always been a blank to me. I never built those castles in the air that many love to build.”