Marian’s hand was stayed now, and she listened eagerly for the answer, which was “Sometime in November, and he has invited me to go with him, but I hardly think I shall. He’s lonesome, he says, and can find no trace of his run away wife. So, there’s a shadow of a chance for you Nell.”
The hand which held the leaf suspended, came down with a crash upon the keys of the piano, but Ellen thought it was an accident, if she thought of it at all; and she replied, “Fie, just as though I would have a man before I knew for certain that his wife was dead. I admire Mr. Raymond very much, and if he had not been so foolish as to marry that child, I can’t say that he would not have made an impression, for he is the finest looking and most agreeable gentleman I ever met. Isn’t it strange where that girl went, and what she went for? Hasn’t he ever told you anything that would explain it?”
Up to this point Marian had sat immovable, listening eagerly and wondering where these people had known Frederic Raymond. Then, as something far back in the past flashed upon her mind, she turned, and looking in the young man’s face, knew who he was and that they had met before. His name had seemed familiar from the first, and she knew that he was the Will Gordon who had been Frederic’s chum in college, and had once spent a vacation at Redstone Hall. He had predicted that she would be a handsome woman, and Frederic had said she could not with such hair. She remembered it all distinctly, but any effect it might then have had upon her was lost in her anxiety to hear the answer to Ellen’s question.
“Fred generally keeps his matters to himself, but I know as much as this: He didn’t love that Miss Lindsey any too well when he married her, but he has admitted to me since that his feelings toward her had undergone a change, and he would give almost anything to find her. He is certain that she was with him when he was sick in New York, and since that time he has sought for her everywhere.”
William Gordon had no idea of the effect his words produced upon the figure which, on the music stool, sat as motionless as if it had been a block of marble. During all the long, dreary years of exile from home there had not come to her so cheering a ray of hope as this, and the bright bloom deepened on her cheek, while the joy which danced in her deep blue eyes made them look almost black beneath the heavy lashes. Frederic was beginning to love her—he had acknowledged as much to Mr. Gordon, and her heart bounded forward to the time when she should see him face to face, and hear him tell her so with his own lips. Little now she heeded Ellen’s next remark, “I presume it would be just the same even if he were to find her. He is a great admirer of beauty, and she, I believe, was very ordinary looking.”
“Not remarkably so,” returned Will. “She was thin-faced and had red hair, but I remember thinking she might make a handsome woman—”
“With red hair! Oh, Will!” and the black-tressed Ellen laughed at the very idea.
A sudden movement on Marian’s part made Will recollect her, and he hastened to apologise for his apparent forgetfulness of her presence.
“You will please excuse us,” he said, “for discussing an affair in which you, of course, can have no interest.”
“Certainly,” she replied, while around the corners of her mouth were little laughing dimples, which told no tales to the young man, who continued: “Will you give us some more music? I admire your style of playing.”