Clara Granville, and Caroline Smythe, having attained the highest acme of perfection under the finishing hand of Mrs. Penfold, were about to be emancipated in a few months from the thralldom of school, and to astonish society by their brilliant acquirements; respecting the most advantageous mode of displaying which, great pains had been taken to instruct them, though the inclination seemed wanting in both girls, being already surfeited with admiration and panegyric among their masters and governesses, who vied with each other in praising their two most advanced pupils, by whose influence they hoped hereafter to obtain recommendations and employment.
Marion had strolled one evening with Caroline, farther than Miss Smythe had ever been known to venture before; and the two young friends were seated in an arbor at the extreme verge of the bounds prescribed by Mrs. Penfold, in earnest conversation, while watching with delight the declining sun, which superbly illuminated a heavy mass of clouds in the western horizon. Time flew on, and darkness nearly closed around them while they discussed with lively, careless humor, all the petty annoyances of their daily life, and compared the little hopes and fears they entertained for the future. As the hour became later, Marion felt that the high exhilarating key in which Caroline spoke, and her gay, well-rung-out laugh, made her almost nervous in the obscure and solitary retreat to which they had withdrawn; but ashamed of her own timidity, she determined to conquer or conceal it.
Marion was flattered when a companion like Caroline, some years older than herself, thus treated her with familiarity; though certainly, neither on this occasion, nor on any other, was it with confidence, as no living being seemed entirely in the confidence of Miss Smythe, who, while she appeared gayly and heedlessly to rattle on in conversation, yet kept a cautious silence respecting all that concerned herself.
Many very reserved persons pass for being perfectly open, by means of a frank, free manner, and by speaking in a confidential tone concerning the most private affairs of those with whom they converse; and this Caroline did to excess, asking Marion, with every appearance of kindness, a hundred questions, which in her own case she either could not, or would not have answered, and testifying the most cordial, unfeigned interest in all that related to the prospects or feelings of her companion, who never attempted to conceal a wish or a thought, and often forgot that the trust was not mutual.
Caroline was talking eagerly with great animation, and telling Marion that the only injury she never would forgive, was, if any of those she loved had a sorrow that did not allow her to share with them; and especially if they permitted themselves to suffer from any pecuniary difficulties which it was within her power to relieve, when suddenly Marion laid a hand on her arm, making a hurried signal for silence, while she whispered in a low undertone,
"I have scarcely heard you for the last five minutes. Did you observe that strange-looking man, very much muffled up, who scrambled several minutes ago to the top of the garden-wall? He was staring wildly about him for some time, then gliding noiselessly down, and has suddenly disappeared?"
"Where? where?" whispered Caroline, grasping Marion's hand with a look of wild alarm, and speaking in a low, hoarse tone of extreme terror. "For your life, Marion, do not stir! Tell me which way he went! He must not see us. O how on earth has he traced me out!"
"Who?" asked Marion, bewildered and terrified, when she beheld a degree of frantic alarm depicted on the countenance of her companion, which seemed almost unaccountable. "Dear Caroline! whom do you fear?"
"A madman!" replied Miss Smythe, in accents of mingled anger and disgust. "He has haunted me for years! He threatens either to murder or to marry me; and you may guess which I think the worst! He has even adopted my name! Did you never hear, Marion, that he actually put his marriage to me last year in the newspapers! He besets my footsteps—besieges my dwelling-place, persecutes me with letters, sends me his picture, follows me to church, throws stones at my windows in the night, and frightens my very life out, yet the law leaves me unprotected, because he commits no actual breach of the peace. It was to avoid him that I begged my aunt to let me live here! How did he discover my retreat?"
Caroline seemed to have lost all command of herself in the agony of her fear, and poured out a flood of words in the rapid and subdued accents of extreme terror, while she retreated into the darkest corner of the arbor to screen herself from observation, hastily dragging Marion along with her, and whispering an eager request, if they were discovered, that she would endeavor herself to get off, and fly towards the house for assistance. "Meantime I shall engage his attention; but if he once sees me, all hope of escape on my part would be vain, while the very endeavor might irritate him! Everything depends on you, Marion! Be resolute, and lose not a moment, or you may be too late."