Markland was stung by this evasive reference to his daughter, for its meaning he clearly understood. Not that he had set his heart on an alliance of Fanny with this man, but, having come to look upon such an event as almost certain, and regarding all obstacles in the way as lying on his side of the question, pride was severely shocked by so unexpected a show of indifference. And its exhibition was the more annoying, manifested, as it was, just at the moment when he had become most painfully aware that all his worldly possessions were beyond his control, and might pass from his reach forever.
“Can there be such baseness in the man?” he exclaimed, mentally, with bitterness, as the thought flitted through his mind that Lyon had deliberately inveigled him, and, having been an instrument of his ruin, now turned from him with cold indifference.
“Impossible!” he replied, aloud, to the frightful conjecture. “I will not cherish the thought for a single moment.”
But a suggestion like this, once made to a man in his circumstances, is not to be cast out of the mind by a simple act of rejection. It becomes a living thing, and manifests its perpetual presence. Turn his thought from it as he would, back to that point it came, and the oftener this occurred, the more corroborating suggestions arrayed themselves by its side.
Mr. Markland was alone in the library, with Mr. Lyon’s hastily read letters before him, and yet pondering, with an unquiet spirit, the varied relations in which he had become placed, when the door was quietly pushed open, and he heard light footsteps crossing the room. Turning, he met the anxious face of his daughter, who, no longer able to bear the suspense that was torturing her, had overcome all shrinking maiden delicacy, and now came to ask if, enclosed in either of his letters, was one for her. She advanced close to where he was sitting, and, as he looked at her with a close observation, he saw that her countenance was almost colourless, her lips rigid, and her heart beating with an oppressed motion, as if half the blood in her body had flowed back upon it.
“Fanny, dear!” said Mr. Markland, grasping her hand tightly. As he did so, she leaned heavily against him, while her eyes ran eagerly over the table.
Two or three times she tried to speak, but was unable to articulate.
“What can I say to you, love?” Her father spoke in a low, sad, tender voice, that to her was prophetic of the worst.
“Is there a letter for me?” she asked, in a husky whisper.
“No, dear.”
He felt her whole frame quiver as if shocked.
“You have heard from Mr. Lyon?” She asked this after the lapse of a few moments, raising herself up as she spoke, and assuming a calmness of exterior that was little in accord with the tumult within.
“Yes. I have three letters of different dates.”
“And none for me?”
“None.”
“Has he not mentioned my name?”
A moment Mr. Markland hesitated, and then answered—
“Yes.”
He saw a slight, quick flush mantle her face, that grew instantly pale again.
“Will you read to me what he says?”
“If you wish me to do so.” Mr. Markland said this almost mechanically.
“Read it.” And as her father took from the table a letter, Fanny grasped his arm tightly, and then stood with the immovable rigidity of a statue. She had already prophesied the worst. The cold, and, to her, cruel words, were like chilling ice-drops on her heart. She listened to the end, and then, with a low cry, fell against her father, happily unconscious of further suffering. To her these brief sentences told the story of unrequited love. How tenderly, how ardently he had written a few months gone by! and now, after a long silence, he makes to her a mere incidental allusion, and asks a “respectful remembrance!” She had heard the knell of all her dearest hopes. Her love had become almost her life, and to trample thus upon it was like extinguishing her life.
“Fanny! Love! Dear Fanny!” But the distressed father called to her in vain, and in vain lifted her nerveless body erect. The oppressed heart was stilled.
A cry of alarm quickly summoned the family, and for a short time a scene of wild terror ensued; for, in the white face of the fainting girl, all saw the image of death. A servant was hurriedly despatched for their physician, and the body removed to one of the chambers.
But motion soon came back, feebly, to the heart; the lungs drew in the vital air, and the circle of life was restored. When the physician arrived, nature had done all for her that could be done. The sickness of her spirit was beyond the reach of any remedy he might prescribe.
CHAPTER XXX.
THE shock received by Fanny left her in a feeble state of mind as well as body. For two or three days she wept almost constantly. Then a leaden calmness, bordering on stupor, ensued, that, even more than her tears, distressed her parents.
Meantime, the anxieties of Mr. Markland, in regard to the business in which he had ventured more than all his possessions, were hourly increasing. Now that suspicion had been admitted into his thought, circumstances which had before given him encouragement bore a doubtful aspect. He was astonished at his own blindness, and frightened at the position in which he found himself placed. Altogether dissatisfied with the kind and amount of information to be gained in New York, his resolution to go South was strengthened daily. Finally, he announced to his family that he must leave them, to be gone at least two or three months. The intelligence came with a shock that partially aroused Fanny from the lethargic state into which she had fallen. Mrs. Markland made only a feeble, tearful opposition. Upon her mind had settled a brooding apprehension of trouble in the future, and every changing aspect in the progression of events but confirmed her fears.
That her husband’s mind had become deeply disturbed Mrs. Markland saw but too clearly; and that this disturbance increased daily, she also saw. Of the causes she had no definite information; but it was not difficult to infer that they involved serious disappointments in regard to the brilliant schemes which had so captivated his imagination. If these disappointments had thrown him back upon his home, better satisfied with the real good in possession, she would not very much have regretted them. But, on learning his purpose to go far South, and even thousands of miles beyond the boundaries of his own country, she became oppressed with a painful anxiety, which was heightened, rather than allayed, by his vague replies to all her earnest inquiries in regard to the state of affairs that rendered this long journey imperative.
“Interests of great magnitude,” he would say, “require that all who are engaged in them should be minutely conversant with their state of progress. I have long enough taken the statements of parties at a distance: now I must see and know for myself.”
How little there was in all this to allay anxiety, or reconcile the heart to a long separation from its life-partner, is clear to every one. Mrs. Markland saw that her husband wished to conceal from her the exact position of his affairs, and this but gave her startled imagination power to conjure up the most frightful images. Fears for the safety of her husband during a long journey in a distant country, where few traces of civilization could yet be found, were far more active than concern for the result of his business. Of that she knew but little; and, so far as its success or failure had power to affect her, experienced but little anxiety. On this account, her trouble was all for him.
Time progressed until the period of Markland’s departure was near at hand. He had watched, painfully, the slow progress of change in Fanny’s state of mind. There was yet no satisfactory aspect. The fact of his near departure had ruffled the surface of her feelings, and given a hectic warmth to her cheeks and a tearful brightness to her eyes. Most earnestly had she entreated him, over and over again, not to leave them.