“I’ve seen him! I’ve sat beside him in the same car!”
“Why didn’t you fetch him home, then?” asked Ben, who had returned that afternoon from a short excursion in the country.
Marian’s face crimsoned at this question, and in a hard, unnatural voice she replied:
“He didn’t wish to come. He didn’t even pretend to recognize me, though he gave me a seat, and I knew him so quick.”
“Had that brown dud over your face, I s’pose,” returned Ben, casting a rueful glance at the vail. “Nobody can tell who a woman is, now-a-days. Why didn’t you pull it off and claim him for your husband, and make him pay your fare?”
“Oh, Ben,” said Marian, “you certainly wouldn’t have me degrade myself like that! Frederic knew who I was, I am sure, for I saw him so plain—but he does not wish to find me. He never asked for me since I left his sick room. All he cared for was Isabel, and I wish it were possible for him to marry her.”
“You don’t wish any such thing,” answered Ben, and in the same cold, hard tone Marian continued:
“I do. I thought so to-night when I sat beside him and looked into his face. I loved him once as much as one can love another, and because I loved him thus I came away, thinking in my ignorance that he might be happy with Isabel; and when I saw that advertisement, I wrote, asking if I might go back again. The result of the letter you know. He insulted me cruelly. He told me a falsehood, and still I was not cured. When I thought him dying in the hotel, I went and staid with him till the other came: but, after I was gone, he never spoke of me, and he even professed not to know Mrs. Daniel Burt, asking who she was, when he knew as well as I, for I told him who she was, and he directed my letter to her. I never used to think he was deceitful, but I know it now, and I almost hate him for it.”
“Tut, tut. No you don’t,” chimed in Ben; and Marian growing still more excited, continued, “Well, if I don’t, I will. I have run after him all I ever shall, and now if we are reconciled he must make the first concessions!”
“Whew-ew,” whistled Ben, thinking to himself, “Ain’t the little critter spunky, though!” and feeling rather amused than otherwise, he watched Marian as she paced the floor, her blue eyes flashing angrily and her whole face indicative of strong excitement.