“And did you, Frederic. Did you love her as Marian ought to be loved?”
The large brown blind eyes looked earnestly into his face, and with that gaze upon him Frederic Raymond could not tell a lie, so he was silent, and Alice, feeling that she was answered, continued, “But you would love her now if she’d come back.”
He couldn’t say yes to that, either, for he knew he did not love her even then, though he thought of her as a noble, generous hearted creature, worthy of a far different fate than had befallen her—and had she come back to him, he would have striven hard to make the love which alone could atone for what she had endured. But she did not come—and day after day went by, during which the search was continued at intervals, and always with the same result—until when a week was gone and there was still no trace of her found, people began to suggest that she was not in the river at all, but had gone off in another direction.—Frederic, however, was incredulous—she had no money that he or any one else knew of, or at least but very little. She had never been away from home alone, and if she had done so now, somebody would have seen her ere this, and suspected who it was—for the papers far and near teemed with the strange event, each editor commenting upon its cause according to his own ideas, and all uniting in censuring the husband, who at last was described as a cruel, unfeeling wretch, capable of driving any woman from his house, particularly one as beautiful and accomplished as the unfortunate bride! It was in vain that Frederic winced under the annoyance—he could not help it—and the story went the rounds, improving with each repetition, until at last an Oregon weekly outdid all the rest by publishing the tale under the heading of “Supposed Horrible Murder.” So much for newspaper paragraphs.
Meantime Frederic, too, inserted in the papers advertisements for the lost one, without any expectation, however, that they would bring her back. To him she was dead, even though her body could not be found. There might be deep, unfathomable sink-holes in the river, he said, and into one of these she had fallen—and so, with a crushing weight upon his spirits, and an intense loathing of himself and the wealth which was his now beyond a question, he gave her up as lost and waited for what would come to him next.
Occasionally he found himself thinking of Isabel, and wondering what she would say to his letter.—When he last saw her, she was talking of visiting her mother’s half-brother, who lived at Dayton, Ohio, and he had said to her at parting, “If you come as far as that, you must surely visit Redstone Hall.”
But he had little faith in her coming—and now he earnestly hoped she would not, for if he wronged the living he would be faithful to the dead; and so day after day he sat there in his desolate home, brooding over the past, trying to forget the present, and shrinking from the future, which looked so hopeless now. Thoughts of Marian haunted him continually, and in his dreams he often heard again the wailing sound, which he knew must have been her cry when she learned how she had been deceived. Gradually, too, he began to miss her presence—to listen for her girlish voice, her bounding step and merry laugh, which he had once thought rude. Her careful forethought for his comfort, too, he missed—confessing in his secret heart at least that Redstone Hall was nothing without Marian.
And now, with these influences at work to make him what he ought to be, we leave him awhile in his sorrow, and follow the fugitive bride.
CHAPTER VIII.
MARIAN.
Onward and onward—faster and faster flew the night Express, and the wishes of nearly all the passengers kept pace with the speed. One there was, however, a pale faced, blue-eyed girl, who dreaded the time when the cars would reach their destination, and she be in New York! How she had come thus far safely she scarce could tell. She only knew that every body had been kind to her, and asked her where she wished to go; until now the last dreadful change was made—the blue Hudson was crossed—Albany was far behind, and she was fast nearing New York. Night and day she had traveled, always with the same dull, dreary sense of pain—the same idea that to her the world would never be pleasant, the sunshine bright, or the flowers sweet again. Nervously she shrank from observation—and once, when a lady behind her, who saw that she was weeping, touched her shoulder and said, “What is the matter, little girl?” she started with fear, but did not answer until the question was repeated—then she replied, “Oh, I’m so tired and sick, and the cars make such a noise!”
“Have you come far?” the lady asked, and Marian answered, “Yes, very, very far,” adding, as she remembered with a shudder the din and confusion of the larger cities, “Is New York a heap noisier than Albany or Buffalo?”