"A stranger?"
"How many weeks is it since first thou saw'st him? And how often? But two or three times. I am sorry for him;—if it be true; if it be true! I liked him well."
"But I have loved him."
"Nay, Marion, nay; thou shouldst moderate thyself."
"I will not moderate myself." Then she disengaged herself from his arm. "I loved him,—with all my heart, and all my strength; nay, with my whole soul. If it be so as that paper says, then I must die too. Oh, father, is it true, think you?"
He paused a while before he answered, examining himself what it might be best that he should say as to her welfare. As for himself, he hardly knew what he believed. These papers were always in search of paragraphs, and would put in the false and true alike,—the false perhaps the sooner, so as to please the taste of their readers. But if it were true, then how bad would it be to give her false hopes! "There need be no ground to despair," he said, "till we shall hear again in the morning."
"I know he is dead."
"Not so, Marion. Thou canst know nothing. If thou wilt bear thyself like a strong-hearted girl, as thou art, I will do this for thee. I will go across to the young lord's house at Hendon at once, and inquire there as to his safety. They will surely know if aught of ill has happened to their master."
So it was done. The poor old man, after his long day's labour, without waiting for his evening meal, taking only a crust with him in his pocket, got into a cab on that cold November evening, and had himself driven by suburban streets and lanes to Hendon Hall. Here the servants were much surprised and startled by the inquiries made. They had heard nothing. Lord Hampstead and his sister were expected home on the following day. Dinner was to be prepared for them, and fires had already been lighted in the rooms. "Dead!" "Killed out hunting!" "Trodden to death in the field!" Not a word of it had reached Hendon Hall. Nevertheless the housekeeper, when the paragraph was shown to her, believed every word of it. And the servants believed it. Thus the poor Quaker returned home with but very little comfort.
Marion's condition during that night was very sad, though she struggled to bear up against her sorrow in compliance with her father's instructions. There was almost nothing said as she sat by him while he ate his supper. On the next morning, too, she rose to give him his breakfast, having fallen asleep through weariness a hundred times during the night, to wake again within a minute or two to the full sense of her sorrow. "Shall I know soon?" she said as he left the house.