Won by her voice, the cat sprang up on Marian’s lap just as Frederic glanced hastily in.
“Your pet is safe,” he said to Alice, whom he followed to the sitting room, waiting there a moment, and then starting to meet Miss Grey.
She knew he was coming, counting every step, and without raising her eyes from the book she pretended to be reading, knew just when he crossed the threshold of the door. Removing her hand from her head, where it had been resting, she gently pushed the cat from her lap, and half rising to her feet, waited for the first words of greeting.
“Miss Grey, I believe;” and bowing low, Frederic Raymond advanced towards Marian, who now stood up, so that the blaze of the chandelier fell full upon her, revealing at once her face and form.
Had her very life depended upon it she could not have spoken then, for the stormy emotions the name “Miss Grey” called up, mastered her speech entirely. She knew he would thus address her, but it grated harshly on her ear to hear him call her so, and her heart yearned for the familiar name of Marian, though she had no reason to expect it from him.
“You are welcome to Riverside,” he continued; “and I regret that your first day here should have been so lonely.”
This gave her a little time, and conquering her weakness she extended her hand to take the one he offered. Hers was cold and clammy, and trembled like an imprisoned bird, as it lay in his broad, warm palm. For an instant he held it there, and gazed down into her sweet, childish face, which did not look wholly unfamiliar to him, while she herself seemed more like a friend than a total stranger. The tie between them, which naught but death could sever, and which was bound so closely around Marian’s heart, brought to his own an answering throb, and when at last she spoke, assuring him that she had not been lonely in the least, he started, for there was something in the tone which moved him as a stranger oft is moved, when hearing in the calm, still night the air of “Home, Sweet Home.” It carried him back to Redstone Hall, years and years ago, when in the moonlight he had played with his dusky companions upon the river brink. But Marian Lindsey had no portion of his thoughts at that first interview with Marian Grey, who ventured at last to look into his face just as he was looking into hers. Oh, how much like the Frederic of old he was, save that in his mature manhood he was finer, nobler looking, while the proud fire of his eye had given place to a milder, softer expression, and she felt intuitively that he was far more worthy of her love than when she knew him before.
Motioning her to a chair, he, too, sat down at a little distance and conversed with her pleasantly, as friend converses with friend, asking about her journey, making inquiries after Mrs. Sheldon’s family, and experiencing a most unaccountable sensation when he saw how she blushed at the mention of William Gordon! Ben was next talked about, and Marian was growing eloquent in his praise, when suddenly a sight met her view which petrified her powers of speech and sent the hot blood ebbing backward from her cheek and lip. In the hall without and where Frederic could not see her, the blind girl stood, her hands clasped and slightly raised, her lips apart, her eyes rolling, her head bent forward, and her ear turned toward the door, whence came the sound which had arrested her footsteps and chained her to the spot. She had started for the parlor and come thus far, when she, too, caught the tone which had affected even Frederic, and her head grew dizzy with the bewildering sound, for to her it brought memories of Marian. Had she come? Was she there with Frederic and Miss Grey? Eagerly she waited to hear the sound repeated, wondering why Miss Grey, too, did not join in the conversation. It came again, the old familiar strain, though tuned to a sadder note, for Marian had suffered much since last she talked with Alice, and it was perceptible even in her voice. Tighter and tighter the small hands pressed together—lower and lower bent the head, while a shade of disappointment flitted over the face of the listening child, for this time it did not seem quite so natural as at first, and she knew, too, that ’twas Miss Grey who spoke, for her subject was Ben Butterworth.
“What is it?” asked Frederic, observing that Miss Grey stopped suddenly in the midst of a remark.
Marian pointed toward the spot where Alice stood, but ere Frederic had time to step forward, the loud ring of the bell started Alice from an attitude which, had Frederic Raymond seen it, would surely have led to a discovery.