"Oh yes, yes! pray do, Colonel Manners," cried Marian, starting up, and clasping her hands. "I beg your pardon for asking you such a thing; but, indeed, it will be a very great consolation."
"If it afford you the slightest comfort, my dear young lady," replied Colonel Manners, "it will be the greatest pleasure to me. Will you send my servant?" he added as the butler appeared. The servant came promptly: for the anxiety of the parlour soon finds its way, in a greater or less degree, to the servant's hall; and all the domestics at Morley House were as much on the alert as the garrison of a newly invested fort.
"Put my saddle on the gray directly," said Colonel Manners; "saddle Amherst for yourself, and bid Captain De Vaux's servant get a horse ready to come with me." The man retired. "I will just put myself in riding costume, and be down directly," Manners added; and leaving the ladies still gazing in melancholy guise from the windows of the breakfast-room, he retired to his own apartment.
Long before the horses could be ready, however, he had rejoined them, and was in the act of saying, "Now, I think, Mrs. Falkland, with three old soldiers upon the search, we must soon be able to bring you tidings of your nephew; and, I trust, perfectly satisfactory tidings too," when the butler again made his appearance. The terror expressed upon his countenance, and his first exclamation of, "Oh, ma'am!" instantly sent every drop of blood from Marian's cheek back to her heart. Colonel Manners would fain have stopped a communication which was evidently alarming, and which might not only be a confirmation of their worst fears, but be told in the most abrupt and most painful manner; but it was too late, and the old man went on, "Oh, madam, here is John Harwood, who has the cottage on t'other side of the point, come up to say, that last night, about one o'clock, he heard shots fired in the wood, and he's afraid there's been bad business there."
Marian dropped down where she stood, as if she had been struck with lightning, and for the time all attention was called towards her. Colonel Manners aided to carry the fair unhappy girl to her room; and then leaving her to the care of her female relations, he returned to question both the butler and the peasant, whose intelligence had so much increased their alarm. On inquiry, however, he found that old Gibson's taste for the sublime and horrible had given greater effect to John Harwood's tale than it deserved.
The man had simply heard shots fired, and his own natural conclusion had been, that poachers were busy in the wood, of which, as a dependent on Mrs. Falkland's family, he found himself bound to give information. Colonel Manners, however, sent another servant to the stables to hurry the horses, and then returning to the breakfast-room, wrote down a few words in pencil to inform Mrs. Falkland that the story had been exaggerated; but he was almost instantly joined by Isadore, who assured him that her cousin was better.
Moments of grief, anxiety, and danger are wonderfully powerful in breaking down all the cold and icy barriers which society places between us and those we like; and Isadore Falkland came forward, and laid her fair hand as familiarly upon Colonel Manners's arm as if she had known him from her infancy. There was an earnestness in her fine eyes, too, and an appealing softness in her whole look, that was very irresistible. "Colonel Manners," she said, "this state of apprehension and uncertainty is very dreadful, especially to us poor women, who, having but little knowledge of the world and its ways, have little means of judging whether our fears be reasonable or not. I can see that you have put a restraint upon yourself before Marian; but I beseech you to tell me, at least, if you have any friendship for a person you have known so short a time, what is your real opinion! Do you think there is any serious cause for apprehension?"
"You and your family, Miss Falkland," replied Manners, "have taught me how soon one can feel the deepest interest and friendship for those who deserve it; but in regard to De Vaux, I really see no cause for apprehension."
"Nay, nay, Colonel Manners," said Isadore, "I shall not think you have much regard for me if you try to sooth me by false hopes respecting my cousin. There is an anxiety in your look, which could not be there if there were no cause for alarm."
"Indeed, Miss Falkland," he replied, with a smile which was not of the gayest character in the world--"indeed, I have the deepest regard for you, and would not deceive you for a moment. De Vaux's absence is strange, undoubtedly. His never having gone to bed is strange. But in regard to these shots which have been heard--as the man himself believed till your old butler infected him with his own miraculous mood--they have been undoubtedly fired by poachers; and I see not the slightest reason for believing that they are in any way connected with your cousin's absence."