“Frederic, didn’t you hear me coming? I made a heap of noise,” said a voice close to his side, and Alice’s arm was thrown across his neck.
She had heard all he was saying, but she did not comprehend it until he muttered the name of Marian Grey, and then the truth flashed upon her.
“Poor Frederic,” she said, soothingly, “I pity you so much, for though it is wicked, I am sure you cannot help it.”
“Help what?” he asked, rather impatiently, for this one secret he hoped to bury from the whole world, but the blind girl had discovered it, and she answered unhesitatingly:
“Can’t help loving Marian Grey. I’ve been fearful you would,” she continued, as he made no reply. “I did not see how you could well help it, either, she is so beautiful and good, and every night I pray that if our own Marian is really dead God will let us know.”
This was an entire change in Alice. Hitherto she had pleaded a living Marian—now she suggested one deceased, but Frederic repelled the thought at once.
“Marian was not dead,” he said, “and though he admired Miss Grey, he had no right to love her. He didn’t intend to, either, and if Alice had discovered anything, he trusted she would forget it.”
And this was all the satisfaction he would give the little girl, who, feeling that he would rather be alone, turned away, leaving him again with his unhappy thoughts.
That night he joined the young girls in the parlor and compelled himself to listen while Marian made the old walls echo with her ringing, merry music. But he would not look at her, nor watch her snowy fingers sweeping over the keys, lest they should make worse havoc with his heartstrings than they had already done. At an early hour he sought his chamber where the livelong night he fought manfully with the love which, now that he acknowledged its existence, grew rapidly in intensity and strength. It was not like the love he had felt for Isabel—it was deeper, purer, more absorbing, and what was stranger far than all, he could not feel that it was wicked, and he trembled when he thought how hardened he had become.
The next day, which was the Sabbath, he determined to see as little of Marian as possible, but when at the breakfast table she asked him in her usual frank, open-hearted way to go with her to church, he could not refuse, and he went, feeling a glow of pride at the sensation he knew she was creating, and wondering why she should be so excited.