“Look again. Is not my face a familiar one? Did you never see it before? Not here—not in New England—but far away, where the Summer comes earlier and the Winter is not so long. Is there not something about me—something in my person, or my voice, which carries you back to an old house on the river where you once met a little curly-haired girl?”
She did not need to say more. Little by little it had come to him, and, starting to his feet, he caught her hand, exclaiming, “Great Heaven! The lost wife of Frederic Raymond!”
“Yes,” she answered, “the lost Marian of Redstone Hall,” and leaning her head upon his arm, she burst into tears, for he seemed to her like a brother now, while she to him—
He could not think of her as a sister yet—he loved her too well for that; but still his feelings toward her had changed in the great shock with which he recognized her. She could never be his Marian, he knew, neither did he desire it. And for a moment he stood speechless, wholly overwhelmed with astonishment and wonder. Then he said, “Marian Raymond, why are you here?”
“Why?” she repeated bitterly. “You may well ask why. Hated by him who should care for me, what could I do but go away into the unknown world, and throw myself upon its charities, which in my case have not been cold or selfish. God bless the noble-hearted Ben, and the sainted woman, his mother, who did not cast me off when I went to them, homeless, friendless, and heart-broken.”
In her excitement, Marian clasped her hands together, and the blue of her eye grew deeper, darker, as she paid this tribute of gratitude to those who had been her friends indeed. Involuntarily, Will Gordon, too, responded to the words, “God bless the noble-hearted Ben,” for, looking at the beautiful girl before him, he felt that what she was she owed to the self-denying, unwearied efforts of the uncultivated but generous Ben.
“Marian,” he said again, “you must go home. Go to your husband. He is waiting for you. He has sought for you long; he has expiated his sin. Go, Marian, go——”
“I am going,” she answered, “and if I only knew he wanted me—wanted his wife——”
“He does want you,” interrupted Will. “He has told me so many a time.”
Marian was about to reply, when Mrs. Gordon appeared, warning her son that the carriage was at the door; and with a hurried farewell to Marian and his mother, Will hastened off, whispering to the former, “I shall write to you when on the sea—”