“Perhaps I ought not to tell; but you seem so near to me that I don’t believe Frederic would care. He’s got over it, too, but he loved Isabel,” and Alice’s voice sank to a whisper, as if afraid the walls would hear. “He loved her a heap better than he did poor dear Marian, who somehow found it out that night, and rather than be his wife when he didn’t want her, she ran away, you know.”
“Yes, yes, I know,” gasped Marian, while Alice, little dreaming how well she knew, continued, “And so when Isabel came, he couldn’t help loving her some, I suppose, though Dinah thought he could, and she used to scold mightily when she heard her singing and playing, as she did all the time, so as to get Frederic in there,” and Alice’s tone and manner were so much like old Dinah and so highly expressive of her meaning, that Marian could not forbear smiling. “I talked to Frederic one night,” said Alice, “and told him I didn’t believe Marian was dead, and I reckon I made him think so, too, for he promised he would wait for her ten years.”
“Will he marry then, if he does not find her?” Marian asked by way of calling out the little girl, who replied:
“I suppose he won’t live all his life alone; at any rate, he said he wouldn’t. Oh, Miss Grey!” and Alice started so quickly that Marian started, too; “I’d a heap rather Marian would be his wife than anybody, because he married her first; but if she don’t come back, can’t you guess what I wish would be?” and Alice wound her arms around the neck of Marian, who did guess, but could not embody her guessing in words.
“Did Mr. Raymond never hear from her?” she asked, and resuming her seat, Alice replied:
“Yes, and that’s the mystery. One cold March night when Isabel was dressing for a party, and was just as cross as she could be, there came to him a letter from Sarah Green, saying she was dead and buried with canker rash.”
“Dead!” exclaimed Marian, starting quickly. “When? Where?”
“In New York,” answered Alice; and Marian listened breathlessly to the story of her supposed decease, wondering, as Frederic had often done, whence the letter came, and why it had been sent.
“It must have been a plan of Ben’s to see what he would do,” she thought; and she listened again, with burning cheeks and beating heart, while Alice told of Frederic’s grief when he read that she was dead.
“I know he cried,” said Alice, “for there were tears on his face, and he sat so still, and held me so close to him that I could hear his heart thump so hard,” and she illustrated by striking her tiny fist upon the table.