And at first he had seemed so kind, so much gentler and less reserved than usual! There was certainly some change in him, which she could not understand. He was no longer so calm and unbending as he had been—more impulsive in both ways—kinder, and yet so much more irritable than she had ever known him. What could be the meaning of it? He looked ill too, and confessed to not feeling as well as usual. Marion felt anxious and concerned, and almost forgave him the harshness of that last speech, though her eyes filled with tears as she recalled it.
“Oh how sorry Ralph would be for me if he knew it!” she thought. “Oh, if only I could see him and tell him all my troubles, and ask him to take care of me for always!”
And she longed for him so intensely, that had he suddenly entered the room and stood beside her she would not have been surprised!
And had she only known it—ah! it tears me even to write it—after all these years since that dreary March afternoon; and though long since then, these hopes and sorrows of my poor child’s have faded and softened into the faint shadows of the past; all, even now, I can hardly bear to think of it—at that very moment Ralph was in a house on the opposite side of that very square, closeted with Sir Archibald Cunningham, while they discussed the business which had brought the younger man to England, and of which the successful conclusion was sending him back to Altes the next morning hopeful and elated, feeling strong enough to face all the world in general, and his mother in particular, now that no insurmountable obstacle stood between him and the only woman he had ever loved.
But this Marion did not, could not, know.
So she stood by the window in a half dream of vague hope and expectation. Something, she felt sure, was going to happen: a sensation often the result of over-strained nerves, or excited imagination, but for all that none the less consolatory in its way while it lasts.
What happened was a ring at the bell! It was almost too dark to distinguish the form of the visitor as he ran up the two or three steps that separated the hall door from the pavement; in vain Marion strained her eyes. She could perceive nothing clearly, so she took to listening breathlessly.
The door was opened, but shut quickly.
“No visitor, then,” thought Marion, and her heart sank. But another moment, and it rose again.
“Two letters for you, ma’am,” said the servant entering, but as hastily retreating in search of a light. Letters; ah, yes, good news often comes by the post, so what may not these contain?