"Dear Caroline!" said Marion, calmly, "all is safe! Do not agitate yourself. We have had, indeed, a wonderful escape."
Miss Smythe embraced Marion in a transport of joy and gratitude, after which she turned to Mr. Granville, uttering the warmest expression of her thanks, while he, with an evident desire to conclude a discussion obviously so agitating to the two ladies, proposed, after amply remunerating the two countrymen, his assistants, to hurry forward and send conveyances from the neighboring inn. With one anxious look at the pale, exhausted countenance of Marion, Mr. Granville hastily disappeared, meditating, as he hastened along, with deep interest on his recent adventure, and with pleasing emotion on the happy eclaircissement which had that morning taken place with Marion, binding them to each other by the strong ties of honor, principle, and affection.
Half an hour afterwards, Richard returned with two carriages, in one of which he placed the ladies, whom he met advancing along the road; but after proceeding forward with the other, to secure his prisoner, he was startled and astonished to discover that the maniac and his two keepers had entirely disappeared.
CHAPTER XIX.
"Well! I do declare! some people have the most marvellous good fortune!" exclaimed Sir Patrick next morning turning to Marion, with a newspaper before him. "Here is an account of Granville—Richard Granville—being engaged in a splendid adventure. I might live for ever, and not meet with such a thing. He has rescued Miss Howard, the heiress, from that mad cousin who haunts her with some love-and-murder threats, and who will positively some day assassinate her, like the Miss Raes and Miss Shuckburghs of former times. These very good people, like Granville, who profess to be quite above the world, are all very fond of money. Ten to one, Granville marries Miss Howard in a month."
"So the young lady is to be murdered first, and married immediately afterwards!" said Marion, laughing to see her brother's impetuosity. "The heroine of that story is, after all, only my old school companion, Caroline Smythe. She has been persecuted by this man, she tells me, ever since her childhood, but now he must be put in confinement for life; and—and—as for Mr. Granville,—Patrick,—with your leave, I have a very private and particular reason for believing he is—previously engaged."
A brilliant blush mounted to Marion's temples, while her brother might have almost heard her trembling; but a smile of conscious happiness played round her mouth, while her long eyelashes drooped over her burning cheeks when she spoke these words in an accent of pleased but tremulous emotion; and Sir Patrick, after gazing in her countenance for a moment with an expression of angry perplexity, suddenly started on his feet, crumpling up the newspaper in his hand, with a fiery exclamation of rage, saying,
"Speak again, Marion; tell me what this means. The most uncommon thing in this world is a direct answer; but your blushes are like no other person's, for they betray everything. Girls, from the very beginning of time, have always found out the very last man on earth they ought to like, and live in a state of romantic misery till they can marry him. But it shall never be! I hate and detest Granville! He has injured me! He has caused all my recent sufferings. He shall feel what I have felt. I have the power now, and the will to be revenged. In his sacred profession he dare not and cannot marry you without my consent—and never! no never, shall he have it. Marion, you are a mere child yet! you do not know your own value, and would let yourself go at a mere pepper-corn rent! Granville would become a perfect beggar if he loses our law-suit. You ought to be offered the first match in Scotland."
"So I am," replied Marion, in a low and gentle voice. "Mr. Granville scarcely has his equal in the world."
"Pshaw! nonsense! I have other views for you! Marion, you have not an idea of the sensation you make. My friends are all raving about you. I never understood till now why you cared so little about any of them. Let Agnes look to her laurels, for I am in more than one secret already that would astonish her. Granville must be allowed to follow up his adventure with the heiress. Never mention his name to me again. You may depend upon it, in a month he will be ready and willing to marry Miss Howard."