“To some one, of course,” answered Isabel, at the same time intimating that she hoped she could have a correspondent without her mother troubling herself.
The rudeness of this speech was forgotten by Mrs. Huntington in her alarm at Isabel’s pale face, and she asked anxiously what was the matter?
“Nothing but a wretched headache—teaching don’t agree with me,” was Isabel’s reply, and turning away, she ran up the stairs to her room, where, throwing herself upon the bed, she tried to fancy it all a dream.
But it was not a dream, and Marian’s anguish was scarcely greater than her own at that moment, when she began to realize that Frederic and Redstone Hall were lost to her forever. There might be something in the seven years, but it was a long, dreary time to wait, with the ever-haunting fear that Marian might return, and she half wished she had not opened the letter. But her regrets were unavailing now, and resolving to guard her secret carefully and deny what she had done, if ever accused of it, she began to consider how she should hereafter demean herself toward Frederic. It would be terrible to have him making love to her, she thought, for she would be compelled to tell him no, and if another should become her rival, she could not stand quietly by and witness the unlawful deed.
“Oh, if I or Marian had never been born, this hour would not have come to me,” she cried, burying her face in the pillows to shut out the fast increasing darkness which was so hateful to her.
Already was she reaping the fruit of the transgression, and when an hour later she heard the voice of Frederic in the hall, she stopped her ears, and, burying her face still closer in the pillows, wished again that either Marian or herself had never seen the light of day.
CHAPTER X.
FREDERIC AND ALICE.
All the day long Frederic had thought of Marian—thought of the little blue-eyed girl, who just six weeks before went away from him to die. To die. Many, many times he said that to himself, and as often as he said it, he thought, “perhaps she is not dead,” until the belief grew strong in him that somewhere he should find her, that very day it might be. He wished he could, and take her back to Redstone Hall, where she would be a barrier between himself and the beautiful temptation which it was so hard for him to resist. Manfully had he struggled against it, going always from its presence when the eyes of lustrous black looked softly into his own, and when he heard, as he often did, the full rich-toned voice singing merry songs, he stopped his ears lest the sweet music should touch a chord which he said was hushed forever.
“It might have been,” he thought sometimes to himself, but the time was past, and even if Marian were dead, he must not take another to share the wealth so generously given up. And Marian was dead, he had always believed until to-day, when she seemed to be so near, that on his return at night to Redstone Hall he had a half presentiment that he might find her there, or at least some tidings of her.
All about the house was dark, but on the piazza a little figure was standing, and as its dim outline was revealed to him, he said, involuntarily: “That may be Marian, and I am glad, or at least I will be glad,” and he was hurrying on, when a light from the hall streamed out upon the figure, and he saw that it was Alice waiting for him. Still the impression was so strong that after kissing her, he asked if no one had been at the Hall that day.