“It is hers,” returned Frederic—“do you know where she is?”
“You is the one who orto know that, I reckon,” answered Dinah, adding that she “hadn’t seen her sense jest after dark, when she went up stars with Alice.”
Frederic was interested now. In his abstraction he had not heeded the lapse of time, though he wondered where Marian was, and once feeling anxious to know what she would say to the letter, he was tempted to go in quest of her. But he did not—and now, with a presentiment that all was not right, he went to Alice’s chamber, but found no Marian there. Neither was she in any of the chambers, nor in the hall, nor in the dining room, nor in his father’s room, and he stood at last in the library door. The writing desk was open, and on it lay three letters—one for Alice, one for him, the other undirected. With a beating heart he took the one intended for himself, and tearing it open, read it through. When Marian wrote that “she gave her life away,” she had no thought of deceiving him, for her giving him up was giving her very life. But he did not so understand it, and sinking into a chair he gasped, “Marian is dead!” while his face grew livid and his heart sick with the horrid fear.
“Dead, Marster Frederic,” shrieked old Dinah—“who dars tell me my chile is dead!” and bounding forward like a tiger, she grasped the arm of the wretched man, exclaiming, “whar is she the dead? and what is she dead for? and what’s that she’s writ that makes yer face as white as a piece of paper?—Read, and let us hear.”
“I can’t, I can’t,” moaned the stricken man. “Oh, has it come to this? Marian, Marian—won’t somebody bring her back?”
“If marster’ll tell me whar to look, I’ll find her, so help me, Lord,” said uncle Phil, the tears rolling down his dusky cheeks.
“You found her handkerchief upon the bridge,” returned Frederic, “and Bruno has been howling there—don’t you see? She’s in the river!—She’s drowned! Oh, Marian—poor Marian, I’ve killed her—but God knows I did not mean to;” and in the very spot where not long before poor Marian had fallen on her face, the desolate man how lay on his, and suffered in part what she had suffered there.
It was a striking group assembled there. The bowed man, convulsed with strong emotion, and clutching with one hand the letter which had done the fearful work. The blacks gathered round, some weeping bitterly and all petrified with terror, while into their midst when the storm was at its hight the little Alice groped her way—her soft hair falling over her white night dress, her blind eyes rolling round the room, and her quick ear turned to catch any sound which might explain the strange proceedings. She had been roused from sleep by the confusion, and hearing the uproar in the hall and library, had felt her way to the latter spot, where in the doorway she stood asking for Marian.
“Bless you, honey, Miss Marian’s dead—drownded,” said Dinah, and Alice’s shriek mingled with the general din.
“Where’s Frederic?” asked the little girl, feeling intuitively that he was the one who needed the most sympathy.