Frederic gasped a short, quick breath, and Alice continued, “wouldn’t it be very wicked for you to love anybody else. I don’t mean me—because I’m a little blind girl—but to love somebody and marry them with Marian alive?”
“Certainly it would be wicked,” he replied; and Alice continued, “Aunt Hetty said you were going to marry Isabel, and it almost broke my heart. I never thought before that Marian wasn’t dead, but I knew it then. I felt her right there with us, and I’ve felt her ever since. Dinah, too, said it seemed to her just like Marian was alive, and that she hoped you wouldn’t make—perhaps I ought not to tell you, but you don’t care for Dinah—she hoped you wouldn’t make a fool of yourself. Frederic, do you love Isabel Huntington?”
“Yes,” dropped involuntarily from the young man’s lips, for there was something about that old little child which wrung the truth from him.
“Did you love her before you married Marian?”
“Yes,” he said again, for he could not help himself. There was silence a moment, and then Alice, who had been thinking of what he told her once before, said, interrogatively, “Marian found it out, and that was why she thought you didn’t love her and went away?”
“That was one reason, but not the principal one.”
“Do you think Isabel as good as Marian?”
“No, not as good—not as good,” and Frederic was glad that he could pay this tribute to the lost one.
After a moment Alice spoke again:
“Frederic, do you believe Marian is dead?”