"I fear not," she answered in gentle, pitying tones. "So many years have now passed there seems little hope that she yet lives, and even if she does, if she should be found, there may be nothing gained."
"I know, I know," he returned with emotion, and rising to pace the room, "and yet there are times when hope is still strong within me."
At that instant a slight, graceful, girlish figure came swiftly into the room, and with a glad cry, "Kenneth, Kenneth, you have come at last!" Marian threw herself into the manly arms joyfully opened to receive her.
She clung about his neck weeping from very excess of happiness. "Oh, I have wanted you so much, so much!" she cried. "I thought you would never come! I wish you would never go away again."
He folded her close to his heart with tenderest caresses, then held her off that he might gaze into her blooming face, drinking in its loveliness with feelings of mingled joy and anguish.
It was and yet was not the little pet sister he had left when he went away; she stood on the verge of womanhood now, innocent and fair, with a sweet blending of childish and womanly graces.
Ah, must that deadly curse fall on her? He shuddered at the thought, and almost groaned aloud.
She saw the pain in his face, and redoubling her caresses, "What is it, Kenneth?" she asked; "my poor Kenneth, you are not happy. Has some one been unkind to you? Ah, I know," she added quickly, in a lower tone, "it is for poor, dear father you are grieving; but you know he is so, so happy now, while here he was always sad and suffering."
He sat down and drew her to the old seat upon his knee. The mother had left the room and they were quite alone for the moment.
"How long since you sat here last!" he said, "and how glad I am to have you in the old place again."