There was a grand party that night at the house of Lawyer Gibson, and at Isabel’s request Alice had come to ask how long before the carriage would be ready. Dinah had told her that Frederic was in the library but he sat so still she thought he was not there, and she said inquiringly, “Frederic?”
“Yes, darling,” was his answer in a tone which startled the sensitive child, for she detected in it a sound of tears, and hurrying to his side she passed her hand over his face to assure herself that she heard aright.
“Has something dreadful happened?” she asked, as she felt the moisture on his eye-lids.
Taking her on his lap, and laying his burning cheek against her cool forehead, Frederic said to her very tenderly and low:
“Alice, poor Marian is dead! Here is the letter which came to tell us,” and he placed it in her hand. There was a sudden upward flashing of the brown eyes, and then their soft light was quenched in tears, as, burying her face in the young man’s bosom, the blind girl sobbed, “Oh, no, no, Frederic, no.”
For several minutes she wept passionately, while her little frame shook with strong emotion. Then lifting up her head and reaching toward the spot where she knew the letter lay, she said:
“Read it to me, Frederic,” and he did read, pausing occasionally as he was interrupted by her low moaning cry.
“Is that all?” she asked, when he had finished. “Didn’t you leave out a word?”
“Not one,” was his reply, and with quivering lips the heart-broken child continued, “Marian sent no message for poor blind Alice to remember—she never thought of me who loved her so much. Why didn’t she, Frederic?” and the sightless eyes looked beseechingly at him as if he could explain the mystery.
Poor child! Rudolph McVicar did not know how strong was the affection between those two young girls, or he would surely have sent a message to one who seemed almost a part of Marian herself, and it was this very omission which finally led the close reasoning child to doubt the truth of the letter. But she did not doubt it now. Marian was really dead to her, and for a longtime she sat with Frederic, saying nothing, but by her silence manifesting to him how great was her grief at this sudden bereavement.