“There is a circumstance that I think I ought to have told you before now, Marguerite. But we read of it only a few days after you were taken ill, and when you were not in a condition to be told of it.”
“Well, what circumstance was that?” asked Miss De Lancie, indifferently.
“It was a fatal accident that happened to one of our friends. No, now! don’t get alarmed—it was to no particular friend,” said Cornelia, interrupting herself upon seeing Marguerite’s very lips grow white.
“Well! what was it?” questioned the latter.
“Why, then, you must know that the Venture, in which Lord William Daw sailed, was wrecked off the coast of Cornwall, and Lord William and Mr. Murray were among the lost. We read the whole account of it, copied from an English paper into the Richmond Standard. Lord William’s body was washed ashore, the same night of the wreck.”
“Poor young man, he deserved a better fate,” said Marguerite.
Miss De Lancie went no more into society that season; indeed, the season was well over before she was able to go out. She announced her intention, as soon as the state of her health should permit her to travel, to terminate her visit to Richmond, and go down to her plantation on the banks of the Potomac. Cornelia would gladly have attended her friend, and only waited permission to do so; but the waited invitation was not extended, and Marguerite prepared to set out alone.
“We shall meet you at Berkeley or at Saratoga, this summer?” said Cornelia.
“Perhaps—I do not yet know—my plans for the summer are not arranged,” said Marguerite.
“But you will write as soon as you reach home?”