The next letter was from her mother, and Marion opened it eagerly. She was almost sure to hear some news of Sallie. As she read the first page her brow grew dark, and at the end she crumpled the letter angrily in her hand.
“Silas Johnson is a brute! Oh, how I despise him!” she cried. “To think that he received my letter and paid no attention to it! He did not care enough about his wife to even go and get her. Poor Sallie! I wonder if she died in Bellevue, after all. Oh, I almost wish I had followed the ambulance, and I would have done it if I hadn’t promised to take the Thomas Brennan.”
She paced the floor for awhile in great perplexity. If Sallie was living she felt that she must know it.
After a time she opened another letter. It was from Mr. Ray, and her cheeks crimsoned as she read it.
“After all, there is at least one good man in the world yet,” she said, bitterly: “and they are leaving England to-day, he and his sister, and how happy I shall be to renew their acquaintance.”
As Marion went to pick up the last letter she shrank back in alarm. The handwriting was not familiar, but nevertheless she could guess who was the writer.
“I won’t read it! I won’t even touch it,” she thought, indignantly. “How could he write to me, the cowardly fellow!”
Then a feeling of shame passed over Marion’s soul. She was condemning this man unheard, which was not like her just nature.
“There must be some mistake,” she whispered slowly. “Kittie may have found that picture, or perhaps she was still delirious when she told me. After all, why should I believe so absolutely in a dying girl’s word? Is not the brain sadly clouded and perhaps entirely irresponsible at such a moment? No, I will not convict him until I have heard his story! It is only just, and I shall read his letter.”