“Oh, Lloyd, Lloyd, on an evening like this, why do you come here?”
The woman stood in the light now, a tragic figure of sorrow. And she was not yet forty.
Dr. Fenneben caught his breath and the light seemed to go out before him.
“Marian, oh, Marian! After all these years, do I find you here? They said you were dead.” He caught her in his arms and held her close to his breast.
“Lots of folks spoons round the Saxon House, so I went away and lef 'em,” Bug explained to Vic once afterward.
And that accounted for little Bug sitting lonely on the flat stone by the bend in the river where Dennie and Burgess found him later.
“So you have stood between me and that assassin all these years, even when the lies against me made you doubt my love. Oh, Marian, the strength of a woman's heart!” Fenneben declared, as, side by side, black hair and the gray near together, these long-separated lovers rebuilt their world.
“And this little child brought you here at last. 'A little child shall lead them,'” the woman murmured.
“Yes, Bug is a gift of God.” Lloyd Fenneben was bending over her. “He is Victor Burleigh's nephew, who found him in a deserted place—”
A shriek cut the evening air and she who had been known as Mrs. Marian lay in a faint at Fenneben's feet.