Jenny Montrose wanted to start at once for London, where her aunt lived. If the Colonel were on active service she would not find him there, since the campaign for which he had been recalled from India might have lasted for several years. But if he had retired, he would have settled near his sister-in-law, and it would be there that he would at length set eyes again upon her whom he believed to have perished in the wreck of the Dorcas.
Fritz and Frank offered to escort Jenny to London, whither business called them also, and Fritz naturally wanted to meet Colonel Montrose soon. So all three set out the same evening, and arrived in London during the morning of the 23rd.
But bitter grief fell upon Jenny Montrose. She learned from her aunt that the colonel had died during his last campaign, without the happiness of knowing that the daughter whom he had mourned for was still alive. After coming back from the far waters of the Indian Ocean to embrace her father, hoping never to part from him again, to present her saviour to him, and to beg for his consent to their union and his blessing on it, Jenny would never see him more!
Her distress was great. In vain her aunt lavished on her words of consolation; in vain Fritz sorrowed with her. The blow was too cruel. She had never even thought of the possibility that her father might be dead.
A few days later, in a conversation broken by tears and regrets, Jenny said to him:
“Fritz, dear Fritz, we have just experienced the bitterest of misfortunes, you and I. If you have not changed your mind at all——”
“Oh, Jenny, my darling!” Fritz exclaimed.
“Yes, I know,” said Jenny, “and my father would have been happy to call you his son. I am sure he would have wanted to go with us and share our life in the new English colony. But I must give up that happiness. I am alone in the world now, and have only myself to depend upon! Alone? No, no! You are there, Fritz.”
“Jenny,” said the young man, “the whole of my life shall be devoted to your happiness.”
“And mine to yours, Fritz dear! But since my father is no longer here to give us his consent, since I have no near relations living, and since yours is the only family I can call my own——”