AFTER THE FIRE
Yes, it was Marian. She whom Gilbert Fenton had sought so long and patiently, with doubt and anguish in his heart; she whose double John Saltram had followed across the Atlantic, had been within easy reach of them all the time, hidden away in that dreary old farm-house, the innocent victim of Percival Nowell's treachery, and Stephen Whitelaw's greed of gain. The whole story was told by-and-by, when the master of Wyncomb Farm lay dying.
William Carley and his daughter took her to the Grange as soon as the farmer's spring cart was ready to convey her thither. It was all done very quickly, and none of the farm-servants saw her face. Even if they had done so, it is more than doubtful that they would have recognised her, so pale a shadow of her former self had she become during that long dreary imprisonment; the face wan and wasted, with a strange sharpened look about the features which was like the aspect of death; all the brightness and colour vanished out of the soft brown hair; an ashen pallor upon her beauty, that made her seem like a creature risen from the grave.
They lifted her into the cart, still insensible, and seated her there, wrapped in an old horse-cloth, with her head resting on Mrs. Whitelaw's shoulder; and so they drove slowly away. It was only when they had gone some little distance from the farm, that the fresh morning air revived her, and she opened her eyes and looked about her, wildly at first, and with a faint shuddering sigh.
Then, after a few moments, full consciousness came back to her, and a sudden cry of rapture broke from the pale lips. "O God!" she exclaimed, "am I set free?"
"Yes, dear Mrs. Holbrook, you are free, never again to go back to that cruel place. O, to think that you should be used so, and I so near!"
Marian lifted her head from Ellen's shoulder, and recognised her with a second cry of delight.
"Ellen, is it you? Then I am safe; I must be safe with you."
"Safe! yes, dear. I would die sooner than any harm should come to you again. Who could have brought this cruelty about? who could have shut you up in that room?"