DEDICATED,
BY
THE AUTHOR
MARIAN GREY.
CHAPTER I.
GUARDIAN AND WARD.
The night was dark and the clouds black and heavy which hung over Redstone Hall, whose massive walls loomed up through the darkness like some huge sentinel keeping guard over the spacious grounds by which it was surrounded. Within the house all was still, and without there was no sound to break the midnight silence save the sighing of the autumnal wind through the cedar trees, or the roar of the river, which, swollen by the recent heavy rains, went rushing on to meet its twin sister at a point well known in Kentucky, where our story opens, as “The Forks of the Elkhorn.” From one of the lower windows a single light was shining, and its dim rays fell upon the face of a white-haired man, who moaned uneasily in his sleep, as if pursued by some tormenting fear. At last, as the old fashioned clock struck off the hour of twelve, he awoke, and glancing nervously toward the corner, whence the sound proceeded, he whispered, “Have you come again, Ralph Lindsey, to tell me of my sin?”
“What is it, Mr. Raymond?” and a young girl glided to the bedside of the old man, who, taking her hand in his, the better to assure himself of her presence, said, “Marian, is there nothing in that corner yonder—nothing with silvery hair?”
“Nothing,” answered Marian, “nothing but the lamplight shining on the face of the old clock. Did you think there was some one here?”
“Yes—no. Marian, do you believe the dead can come back to us again—when we have done them a wrong—the dead who are buried in the sea, I mean?”
Marian shuddered involuntarily, and cast a timid look toward the shadowy corner, then, conquering her weakness, she answered, “No, the dead cannot come back. But why do you talk so strangely to-night?”