“Inquire below, then,” persisted Frederic. “Somebody will certainly know, and I must find her.”
Isabel complied with his request, and soon returned with the information that no one knew aught of Mrs. Merton’s whereabouts, though it was generally believed that she came from the country, and at the time of coming to the hotel was visiting friends in the city.
“Find her friends, then,” continued Frederic, growing more and more excited and impatient.
This, too, was impossible, for everything pertaining to Mrs. Merton was mere conjecture. No one could tell where she lived, or whither she had gone; and the sick man lamented the circumstance so often that Isabel more than once lost her temper entirely, wondering why he should be so very anxious about a woman who had been well paid for her services—“yes, more than paid, for her price was a most exorbitant one.”
Meantime, Mrs. Huntington, who, on the receipt of Isabel’s telegram, had started immediately, arrived, laden with trunks, bandboxes, and bags, for the old lady was rather dressy, and fancied a large hotel a good place to show her new clothes. On learning that Frederic was very much better, and that she had been sent for merely on the score of propriety, she seemed somewhat out of humor—“Not that she wanted Frederic to die,” she said, “and she was glad of course that he was getting well, but she didn’t like to be scared the way she was; a telegram always made her stomach tremble so that she didn’t get over it in a week; she had traveled day and night to get there, and didn’t know what she could have done if she hadn’t met Rudolph McVicar in Cincinnati.”
“Rudolph!” exclaimed Isabel. “Pray, where is he now?”
“Here in this very hotel,” returned her mother. “He came with me all the way, and seemed greatly interested in you, asking a thousand questions about when you expected to be married. Said he supposed Frederic’s illness would postpone it awhile, and when I told him you wan’t even engaged as I knew of, he looked disappointed. I believe Rudolph has reformed!”
“The wretch!” muttered Isabel, who rightly guessed that Rudolph’s interest was only feigned.
He had heard of her sudden departure for New York, and had heard also (Agnes Gibson being the source whence the information came) that she might, perhaps, be married as soon as Frederic was able to sit up. Accordingly, he had himself started northward, stumbling upon Mrs. Huntington in Cincinnati, and coming with her to New York, where he stopped at the same hotel, intending to remain there and wait for the result. He did not care to meet Isabel face to face, while she was quite as anxious to avoid an interview with him; and after a few days she ceased to be troubled about him at all. Frederic absorbed all her thoughts, he appeared so differently from what he used to do—talking but little either to herself or her mother, and lying nearly all the day with his eyes shut, though she knew he was not asleep; and she tried in vain to fathom the subject of his reflections. But he guarded that secret well, and day after day he thought on, living over again the first weeks of his sickness in that chamber, until at last the conviction was fixed upon his mind that, spite of the short hair, spite of the probable age, spite of the story about Mrs. Merton’s daughter, or yet the letter from Sarah Green, that young girl who had watched with him so long and then disappeared so mysteriously, was none other than Marian—his wife. He did not shudder now when he repeated that last word to himself. It sounded pleasantly, for he knew it was connected with the sweet, womanly love which had saved him from death. The brown hair which Isabel had mentioned he rejected as an impossibility. It had undoubtedly looked dark to her, but it was red still, though worn short in her neck, for he remembered that distinctly. Sarah Green’s letter was a forgery—Alice’s prediction was true, and Marian still lived.
But where was she now? Why had she left him so abruptly? and would he ever find her? Yes, he would, he said. He would spare no time, no pains, no money in the search; and when he found her he would love and cherish her as she deserved. He was beginning to love her now, and he wondered at his infatuation for Isabel, whose real character was becoming more and more apparent to him. His changed demeanor made her cross and fretful; while Alice Gibson’s letter, asking when she was to be married, and saying people there expected her to return a bride, only increased her ill-humor, which manifested itself several times toward her mother, in Frederic’s presence.