Marian felt that it would be right, and, though it cost her a pang, she said, at last:
“Yes, Ben, you may telegraph; but what name will you append?”
“Benjamin Butterworth, of course,” he replied. “They’ll remember the peddler, and think it nateral I should feel an interest.” And leaving Marian to take charge of the breakfast table, he started for the office.
Meantime the sick room was the scene of much excitement—Frederic raving furiously, and asking for “the girl with the soft hands and silken hair.” Sometimes he called her Marian, and begged of them to bring her back, promising not to make her cry again.
“There is a mystery connected with this Marian he talks so much about,” said the physician, who was present, “and he seems to fancy a resemblance between her and the girl who left here this morning. What may I call her name?”
“Marian, my daughter,” came involuntarily from Mrs. Burt, whose mental rejoinder was, “God forgive me for that lie, if it was one. Names and things is gettin’ so twisted up that it takes more than me to straighten ’em!”
“Well, then,” continued the physician, “suppose you send for her. It will never do for him to get so excited. He is wearing out too fast.”
“I will go for her myself,” said Mrs. Burt, who fancied some persuasion might be necessary ere Marian could be induced to return.
But she was mistaken, for when told that Frederic’s life depended upon his being kept quiet, and his being kept quiet depended upon her presence, Marian consented, and nerved herself to hear him talk, as she knew he would, of her rival.
“If he lives, I will be satisfied,” she thought, “even though he never did or can love me,” and with a strong, brave heart, she went back again to the sick man, who welcomed her joyfully, and folding his feeble arms around her neck, stroked again her hair, as he said, “You will not leave me, Marian, till Isabel is here. Then you may go—back to the grave I cannot find, and we will go home together.”