Marian shuddered involuntarily, and without knowing why, felt a deep interest in the stranger, thinking how terrible it was to be sick and alone in a crowded, noisy hotel.
“Is he better?” she asked, and Ben replied, “No, ten times wus—he’ll die most likely. But hurry up—here’s the omnibus we want,” and in the excitement of securing a seat, they both forgot the sick man.
The trip to Yonkers was a pleasant one, for to Marian it seemed like going home, and when, after reaching the station, they entered the lumbering stage and wound slowly up the long, steep hill, she recognized many familiar way marks, and drawing her vail over her face, wept silently as she remembered all she had passed through since the night when Col. Raymond first took her up that same long hill, and told her by the way, of his boy Frederic, who would be delighted with a sister. The fond old man was dead now, and she, the little girl he had loved so much, was a sad lonely woman, going back to visit the spot which had been so handsomely fitted up without a thought of her.
The house itself was greatly changed, but the view it commanded of the river and the scenery beyond was the same, and leaning against a pillar Marian tried to fancy that she was a child again and listening for the bold footsteps of the handsome, teasing boy, once her terror and her pride. But all in vain she listened: the well-remembered foot-fall did not come: the handsome boy was not there, and even had he been, she would scarcely have recognized him in the haughty, elegant young man, her husband. Yes, he was her husband, and she repeated the name to herself, and when at last Ben touched her on the shoulder, saying, “I have told Miss Russell my sister was here, and she says you can go over the house,” she started as if waking from a dream.
“Let us go through the garden first,” she said, as she led the way to the maple tree where summers before he had built her little play-house, and where on the bark, just as high as his head then came, the name of Frederic was cut.
Far below it, and at a point which her red curls had reached, there was another name—her own—and Frederic’s jack-knife had made that, too, while she stood by and said to him, “I wish I was Marian Raymond, instead of Marian Lindsey.”
How distinctly she remembered the characteristic reply:
“If you should happen to be my wife, you would be Marian Raymond; but pshaw, I shall marry a great deal prettier woman than you will ever be, and you may live with us if you want to, and take care of the children. I mean to have a lot!”
She had not thought of this speech in years, but it come back to her vividly now, as did many other things which had occurred there long ago. Within the house everything was changed, but they had no trouble in identifying the different rooms, and she lingered long in the one she felt sure was intended for Frederic himself, sitting in the chair where she knew he would often sit, and wondering if, while sitting there, he would ever think of her. Perhaps he might be afraid of meeting her accidentally in New York, and so he would seldom come there; or, if he did, it would be after dark, or when she was not in the street, and thus she should possibly never see him, as she hoped to do. The thought was a sad one, and never before had the gulf between herself and Frederic seemed so utterly impassible as on that April morning when, in his room and his arm-chair, the girl-wife sat and questioned the dark future of what it had in store for her.
Once she was half tempted to leave some momento—something which would tell him she had been there. She spurned the idea as soon as formed. She would not intrude herself upon him a second time, and rising at last, she arranged the furniture more to her taste, changed the position of a picture, moved the mirror into a perfect angle, set Frederic’s chair before the window looking out, upon the river, and then, standing in the door, fancied that she saw him, with his handsome face turned to the light, and his rich brown hair shading his white brow. At his feet, and not far away was a little stool, and if she could only sit there once, resting her head upon his knee and hear him speaking to her kindly, affectionately, she felt that she would gladly die, and leave to another the caresses she could never hope to receive.