[CHAPTER VII.]
MARION MERLIN.
At the age of eighteen I was betrothed to Walter Howard, a young man of polished manners, elegant exterior, and connected with one of the first families of New York. I was beautiful, so the world said,—eighteen and an heiress. My father was one of the wealthiest merchants of New York, with a princely mansion in town, and as princely a mansion, for summer residence, in the country. I had lost my mother, at an age so early, that I can but dimly remember her pallid face. At eighteen, I was my father's only and idolized child.
Returning from boarding-school, where, apart from the busy world, I had passed four years of a life, which afterward was to be marked by deeds so singular, yes, unnatural, I was invested by my father, with the keys of his city mansion, and installed as its mistress. Still kept apart from the world,—for my father guarded me from its wiles and temptations, with an eye of sleepless jealousy,—I was left to form ideas of my future life, from the fancies of my day-dreams, or from what knowledge I had gleaned from books. Walter was my father's head clerk. In that capacity he often visited our mansion. To see him was to love him. His form was graceful, and yet manly; his complexion a rich bronze; his eyes dark, penetrating and melancholy. As for myself, a picture which, amid all my changing fortunes, I have preserved as a relic of happy and innocent days, shows a girl of eighteen, with a form that may well be called voluptuous, and a face, (shaded by masses of raven hair,) which, with its clear bronzed complexion, large hazel eyes, and arching brows, tells the story of my descent on my mother's side,—she was a West-Indian, and there is Spanish blood in my veins. My acquaintance with Walter, ripened into warm and passionate love, and one day, my father surprised me, as I hung upon my lover's breast, and instead of chiding us, said with a look of unmistakable affection:
"Right, Walter. You have won my daughter's love. When you return from the West Indies, you shall be married; and once married, instead of my head clerk, you shall be my partner."
My father was a venerable man, with a kindly face and snow-white hair: as he spoke the tears ran down his cheeks, for (as I afterward ascertained,) my marriage with Walter, the orphan of one of the dearest friends of his boyhood, had been the most treasured hope of his life for years.
Walter left for Havana, intrusted with an important and secret commission from my father. He was to be absent only a month. Why was it, on the day of his departure, as he strained me to his breast and covered my face with his passionate kisses, that a deep presentiment chilled my blood? O had he never left my side, what a world of agony, of despair,—yes of crime,—would have been spared to me!
"Be true to me, Marion!" these were his last words,—"in a month I will return—"
"True to you! can you doubt it Walter? True until death,—" and we parted.