This, however, did not lessen Ben’s attentions in the least, or stay his tears when he thought that she would die. “She should be buried in Greenwood,” he said; “he’d got more’n two hundred dollars in the bank at Ware, all arnt honest, with hard work; and if there was such a thing as a stun forty feet high she should have it, and he’d get som o’ them that scribbled for a living to write a piece; there should be a big funeral, too—he could hire carriages as well as the best of ’em—and he’d have a procession so long that folks would stop and stare, and Frederic Raymond wouldn’t be ashamed on’t either, the scalliwag—he hoped when he and Isabel came to die they’d be pitched into the canal where the water was considerable kind o’ dirty, too!”
This long speech relieved Ben somewhat, and fully determined to carry out his promise, he staid patiently by Marian, nor experienced one feeling of regret when he heard that, owing to his prolonged absence, his place in Ware had been given to another.
“Nobody cares,” he said, “I can find something to do if it’s nothin’ but sawin’ wood.”
So he remained at home through all the winter days, and watched by the sick girl, who talked piteously of her home, of Alice, and that man who hated her so. She never spoke his name, but she sometimes begged of him to come and take her away where it didn’t thunder all the time. The roar of the city disturbed her, and she frequently besought Ben to go and stop it so that she could sleep and be better in the morning; and Ben, had it been in his power, would have stayed the busy life around them, and let the weary, worn-out sufferer sleep. But this could not be, and so, day after day the heavy, incessant roar came through the curtained window into the darkened room, where Marian lay moaning in her pain. Once in her unconsciousness she folded meekly her thin hands and prayed, “Will God stop that noise and let me sleep just once?” then with an expression of childish trust upon her face, she said to those around her, “He will stop it to-morrow, I reckon.”
And when the winter snows all were fallen, and the early March sun shone upon the kitchen walls, the to-morrow so much longed for came, and Marian woke at last to consciousness. She was out of danger, the physician said, though it might be long ere her health was fully restored. To Marian, this announcement brought but little joy. “She had hoped to die,” she said, “and thus be out of the way,” and then she spoke of Redstone Hall, asking if any tidings had come from there since the dreadful message she had received. There was none, for Isabel Huntington guarded her secret well, and Frederic Raymond knew nothing of the white, emaciated wreck which prayed each day that he might be happy with the companion he had chosen.
“If he had only waited,” she said to Mrs. Burt and Ben, one day when she was able to be bolstered up in bed, “if he had waited and not taken her so soon, I shouldn’t care so much, but it’s awful to think of his living with her after I wrote that letter.”
“Marian,” said Ben, a little impatiently, “I’m naturally a fool, so every body says, but I’ve sense enough to know that Mr. Raymond never went and married that woman so quick after you came away; ’taint reasonable at all. Why, they’d mob him—tar and feather him—for you ain’t dead, and he’s no business with two wives.”
Marian’s, face was whiter than ever when Ben finished speaking, and a bright red spot burned on her cheek as she gasped, “You didn’t,—you can’t believe she’s there and not his wife. That would be worse than everything else.”
“Of course I don’t,” returned Ben. “My ’pinion is that she ain’t there at all, and he only writ that to make a clean finish of you, or ’tany rate, so’t you wouldn’t be coming back to bother him. He calkerlates to have her bimeby. I presume—say in seven years.”
“Oh, I wish I knew,” said Marian, and Ben replied, “Would you rest any easier nights if you did?”