“Oh! what an unfortunate fate. Fool that I was to go away and leave her. Fool to have listened to the counsels of her wicked father. When I learnt what he had done I should have come back, if not for love, for revenge. It may not be too late for the last; but, for the first—O God!—the girl I have loved for long years, to come back and find her—perhaps in the arms of another—O God!”
For some moments the young man stood with clouded, lace, his strong frame quivering under the shock of some painful emotion.
“Shall I cross over and make inquiry?” was the reflection that followed, as he became calmer.
“The people can, no doubt, give me some information, whether he be dead, and if she be still in the neighbourhood. No—no; I will not ask. I dread the answer to be given me.
“But, why not? I may as well know now the worst, whatever it be. I must learn it in time. Why not at once?
“There is no danger of my being recognised—even she would not know me, and these people are, perhaps, strange to the settlement. The country shows a change—clearings everywhere around, where I remember only trees. I wonder who they are? Some of them should, soon come out by that door. The day is inviting; I shall hold back awhile and see.”
During all this time the young man had been standing among thick underwood that screened his person from view.
He only changed position so that his face should be also invisible to any one upon the other side of the creek, and thus stood with eyes fixed intently upon the house.
He had not been many minutes in this attitude of expectation, when the front door, which stood open, was filled by a form, the sight of which sent the blood in a lava current through his veins, and caused his heart to bound audibly in his breast.
The apparition that had produced this effect was a young girl—a lady she might be called—in light summer dress, with a white kerchief thrown loosely over her head, only partially concealing the thick coil of shining hair held by the tortoiseshell comb underneath it.