University of Virginia Library

7. CHAPTER VII.
THE ALARM.

In her solitary bed little Alice slumbered on, moaning
occasionally in her sleep, and at last when the
clock struck nine, starting up and calling “Marian,
Marian, where are you?” Then, remembering that
Marian could not come to her that night, she puzzled
her little brain with the great mystery, and wept herself
to sleep for the second time.

In the kitchen old Dinah was busy with various
household matters. With Frederic she had heard in
the distance the bitter moan which Marian made when
first she learned how she had been deceived, and like
him she had wondered what the sound could be—then
as a baby's cry came from a cabin near by, she had
said to herself, “some of them Higgins brats, I'll warrant.
They're allus a squallin',” and, satisfied with
this conclusion, she had resumed her work. Once or
twice after that she was in the house, feeling a good
deal disturbed at seeing Frederic sitting alone without
his bride, who, she rightly supposed, “was somewhar.
But 'tain't no way,” she muttered; “Phil and
me didn't do like that;” then reflecting that “white
folks wasn't like niggers,” she returned to the kitchen
just as Bruno set up his first loud howl. With Dinah
the howl of a dog was a sure sign of death, and dropping
her tallow candle in her fright, she exclaimed—
“for the Lord's sake who's gwine to die now? I hope
to goodness 'taint me, nor Phil, nor Lid, nor Victory

Eugeny,” and turning to Aunt Hetty, who was troubled
with vertigo, she asked if “she'd felt any signs of
an afterplax fit lately?”

“The Lord,” exclaimed old Hetty, “I hain't had a
drap o' blood in me this six month, and if Bruno's
howlin' for me, he may as well save his breath;” but
in spite of this self-assurance, the old negress, when
no one saw her, dipped her head in a bucket of water
by way of warding off the danger.

Thus the evening wore away until at last Dinah,
standing in the doorway, heard the whistle of the train
as it passed the Big Spring station.

“Who s'posed 'twas half-past nine,” she exclaimed.
“I'll go this minit and see if Miss Marian wants
me.”

Just then another loud piercing howl from Bruno,
who was growing impatient, fell upon her ear and arrested
her movements.

“What can ail the critter,” she said—“and he's
down on the bridge, too, I believe.”

The other negroes also heard the cry, which was
succeeded by another and another, and became at last
one prolonged yell, which echoed down the river and
over the hills, starting Frederic from his deep reverie
and bringing him to the piazza, where the blacks had
assembled in a body.

“'Spects mebbe Bruno's done cotched somethin' or
somebody down thar,” suggested Philip, the most
courageous of the group.

“Suppose you go and see,” said Frederic, and lighting
his old lantern Philip sallied out, followed ere
long by all his comrades, who, by accusing each other
of being “skeered to death,” managed to keep up
their own courage.

The bridge was reached, and in a tremor of delight
Bruno bounded upon Phil, upsetting the old man and
extinguishing the light, so that they were in total
darkness. The white handkerchief, however, caught
Dinah's eye, and in picking it up she also felt the

glove, which was lying near it. But this did not explain
the mystery—and after searching in vain for
man, beast or hobgoblin, the party returned to the
house, where their master awaited them.

“Thar warn't nothin' thar 'cept this yer rag and
glove,” said Dinah, passing the articles to him.

He took them, and going to the light saw the name
upon the handkerchief, “Marian Lindsey.” The glove
too, he recognised as belonging to her, and with a
vague fear of impending evil, he asked where they
found them.

“On the bridge,” answered Dinah; “somebody
must have drapped 'em. That handkercher looks
mighty like Miss Marian's hem-stitched one.”

“It is hers,” returned Frederic—“do you know
where she is?”

“You is the one who orto know that, I reckon,”
answered Dinah, adding that she “hadn't seen her
sense jest after dark, when she went up stars with
Alice.”

Frederic was interested now. In his abstraction he
had not heeded the lapse of time, though he wondered
where Marian was, and once feeling anxious to know
what she would say to the letter, he was tempted to
go in quest of her. But he did not—and now, with a
presentiment that all was not right, he went to Alice's
chamber, but found no Marian there. Neither was
she in any of the chambers, nor in the hall, nor in the
dining room, nor in his father's room, and he stood at
last in the library door. The writing-desk was open,
and on it lay three letters—one for Alice, one for him,
the other undirected. With a beating heart he took
the one intended for himself, and tearing it open, read
it through. When Marian wrote that “she gave her
life away,” she had no thought of deceiving him, for
her giving him up was giving her very life. But he
did not so understand it, and sinking into a chair he
gasped, “Marian is dead!” while his face grew livid
and his heart sick with the horrid fear.

“Dead, Marster Frederic,” shrieked old Dinah—
“who dars tell me my chile is dead!” and bounding
forward like a tiger, she grasped the arm of the
wretched man, exclaiming, “whar is she the dead?
and what is she dead for? and what's that she's writ
that makes yer face as white as a piece of paper?—
Read, and let us hear.”

“I can't, I can't,” moaned the stricken man. “Oh,
has it come to this? Marian, Marian—won't somebody
bring her back?”

“If marster 'll tell me whar to look, I'll find her,
so help me, Lord,” said uncle Phil, the tears rolling
down his dusky cheeks.

“You found her handkerchief upon the bridge,”
returned Frederic, “and Bruno has been howling
there—don't you see? She's in the river!—She's
drowned! Oh, Marian—poor Marian, I've killed her
—but God knows I did not mean to;” and in the very
spot where not long before poor Marian had fallen on
her face, the desolate man now lay on his, and suffered
in part what she had suffered there.

It was a striking group assembled there. The
bowed man, convulsed with strong emotion, and
clutching with one hand the letter which had done the
fearful work. The blacks gathered round, some weeping
bitterly and all petrified with terror, while into
their midst when the storm was at its hight the little
Alice groped her way—her soft hair falling over her
white night dress, her blind eyes rolling round the
room, and her quick ear turned to catch any sound
which might explain the strange proceedings. She
had been roused from sleep by the confusion, and
hearing the uproar in the hall and library, had felt
her way to the latter spot, where in the doorway she
stood asking for Marian.

“Bless you, honey, Miss Marian's dead—drownded,”
said Dinah, and Alice's shriek mingled with the
general din.

“Where's Frederic?” asked the little girl, feeling

intuitively that he was the one who needed the most
sympathy.

At the sound of his name Frederic lifted up his
head, and taking the child in his arms, kissed her
tenderly, as if he would thus make amends for his
coldness to the lost Marian.

“'Tain't no way to stay here like rocks,” said Uncle
Phil at last. “If Miss Marian's in the river, we 'd
better be a fishin' her out,” and the practical negro
proceeded to make the necessary arrangements.

Before he left the room, however, he would know
if he were working for a certainty, and turning to his
master, said, “Have you jest cause for thinkin' she's
done drownded herself—'case if you hain't, 'tain't no
use huntin' this dark night, and it's gwine to rain,
too. The clouds is gettin' black as pitch.”

Thus appealed to, Frederic answered, “She says in
the letter that she's going away forever, that she shall
not come back again, and she spoke of giving her life
away. You found her handkerchief and glove upon
the bridge, with Bruno watching near, and she is
gone. Do you need more proof?”

Uncle Phil did not, though “he'd jest like to know,
he said, “why a gal should up and dround herself on
the very fust night arter she'd married the richest and
han'somest chap in the county—but thar was no tellin'
what gals would do. Gener'ly, though, you could
calkerlate on thar doin' jest con-tra-ry to what you'd
'spect they would, and if Miss Marian preferred the
river to that twenty-five pound feather-bed that Dinah
spent mor'n an hour in makin' up, 'twas her nater,
and 'twan't for him to say agin it. All he'd got to do
was to work!”

And the old man did work, assisted by the other
negroes and those of the neighbors who lived near to
Redstone Hall. Frederic, too, joined, or rather led
the search. Bareheaded, and utterly regardless of
the rain which, as Uncle Phil had prophesied, began
to fall in torrents, he gave the necessary directions,

and when the morning broke, few would have recognized
the elegant bridegroom of the previous day in
the white-faced, weary man, who, with soiled garments
and dripping hair, stood upon the narrow
bridge, and in the grey November morning looked
mournfully down the river as it went rushing on, telling
no secret, if secret, indeed, there were to tell, of the
wild despair which must have filled poor Marian's
heart and maddened her brain ere she sought that
watery grave.

Before coming out he had hurriedly read his father's
letter, and he could well understand how its
contents broke the heart of the wretched girl, and
drove her to the desperate act which he believed she
had committed.

“Poor Marian,” he whispered to himself, “I alone
am the cause of your sad death;” and most gladly
would he then have become a beggar and earned his
bread by the sweat of his brow, could she have come
back again, full of life, of health and hope, just as she
was the day before.

But this could not be, for she was dead, he said,
dead beyond a doubt; and all that remained for him
to do was to find her body and lay it beside his father.
So during that day the search went on, and crowds
of people were gathered on each side of the river, but
no trace of the lost one could be found, and when a
second time the night fell dark and heavy round Redstone
Hall, it found a mournful group assembled there.

To Alice Frederic had read the letter left for her,
and treasuring up each word the child groped her way
into the kitchen, where, holding the note before her
sightless eyes as if she could really see, she repeated
it to the assembled blacks,

“Lor' bless the child,” sobbed Dinah from behind
her woolen apron, “I knowed she would remember
me.”

“And me,” joined in Hetty. “Don't you mind
how I is spoke of, too? She was a lady, every inch

of her, Miss Marian was, an' if I said any badness
of her, I want you to forgive me, Dinah. Here's my
hand,” and these two old ladies took each other's
hand in token that they were joined together now in
one common sorrow.

Indeed, for once, the Higginses and Smitherses forgot
their ancient feud and united in extolling the virtues
of the lost one. After reading the letter as many
as three times—for when their grief had somewhat
subsided, the blacks would ask to hear it again, so as
to have fresh cause for tears—Alice returned to the
parlor, where she knew Frederic was sitting. Her
own heart was throbbing with anguish, but she felt
that his was a sorrow different from her own, and
feeling her way to where he sat she wound her little
arms around his neck, and whispered tenderly: “We
must love each other more now that Marian is gone.”

He made no answer except to take her on his lap
and lay her head upon his bosom; but Alice was satisfied
with this, and after a moment she said, “Frederic,
do you know why Marian killed herself?”

“Oh, Alice, Alice,” he groaned. “Don't say those
dreadful words. I cannot endure the thought.”

“But,” persisted the child, “she couldn't have
known what she was doing, and God forgave her.—
Don't you think He did? She asked him to, I am
sure, when she was sinking in the deep water.”

The child's mind had gone further after the lost
one than Frederic's had, and her question inflicted
a keener pang than any he had felt before. He
had ruined Marian, body and soul, and Alice felt his
hot tears dropping on her face as he made her no reply.
Her faith was stronger than his, and putting up
her waxen hand, she wiped his tears away, saying to
him, “We shall meet Marian again, I know, and then
if you did anything naughty which made her go
away, you can tell her you are sorry, and she'll forgive
you, for she loved you very much.”

Alice's words were like arrows to the heart of the

young man, and still he felt in the first hours of his
desolation that she was his comforting angel, and he
could not live without her. More than once she
asked him if he knew why Marian went away, and at
last he made her answer, “Yes, Alice, I do know, but
I cannot tell you now. You would not understand it.”

“I think I should,” persisted the child, “and I
should feel so much better if I knew there was a reason.”

Thus importuned, Frederic replied, “I can only tell
you that she thought I did not love her.”

“And did you, Frederic. Did you love her as Marian
ought to be loved?”

The large brown blind eyes looked earnestly into
his face, and with that gaze upon him Frederic Raymond
could not tell a lie, so he was silent, and Alice,
feeling that she was answered, continued, “But you
would love her now if she'd come back.”

He couldn't say yes to that, either, for he knew he
did not love her even then, though he thought of her
as a noble, generous-hearted creature, worthy of a far
different fate than had befallen her—and had she come
back to him, he would have striven hard to make the
love which alone could atone for what she had endured.
But she did not come—and day after day went
by, during which the search was continued at intervals,
and always with the same result—until when a
week was gone and there was still no trace of her
found, people began to suggest that she was not in the
river at all, but had gone off in another direction.—
Frederic, however, was incredulous—she had no money
that he or any one else knew of, or at least but
very little. She had never been away from home
alone, and if she had done so now, somebody would
have seen her ere this, and suspected who it was—for
the papers far and near teemed with the strange event,
each editor commenting upon its cause according to
his own ideas, and all uniting in censuring the husband,
who at last was described as a cruel, unfeeling

wretch, capable of driving any woman from his house,
particularly one as beautiful and accomplished as the
unfortunate bride! It was in vain that Frederic
winced under the annoyance—he could not help it—
and the story went the rounds, improving with each
repetition, until at last an Oregon weekly outdid all
the rest by publishing the tale under the heading of
“Supposed Horrible Murder.” So much for newspaper
paragraphs.

Meantime Frederic, too, inserted in the papers advertisements
for the lost one, without any expectation,
however, that they would bring her back. To him she
was dead, even though her body could not be found.
There might be deep, unfathomable sink-holes in the
river, he said, and into one of these she had fallen—
and so, with a crushing weight upon his spirits, and
an intense loathing of himself and the wealth which
was his now beyond a question, he gave her up as
lost and waited for what would come to him next.

Occasionally he found himself thinking of Isabel,
and wondering what she would say to his letter.—
When he last saw her, she was talking of visiting her
mother's half-brother, who lived at Dayton, Ohio, and
he had said to her at parting, “If you come as far as
that, you must surely visit Redstone Hall.”

But he had little faith in her coming—and now he
earnestly hoped she would not, for if he wronged the
living he would be faithful to the dead; and so day
after day he sat there in his desolate home, brooding
over the past, trying to forget the present, and shrinking
from the future, which looked so hopeless now.
Thoughts of Marian haunted him continually, and in
his dreams he often heard again the wailing sound,
which he knew must have been her cry when she
learned how she had been deceived. Gradually, too,
he began to miss her presence—to listen for her girlish
voice, her bounding step and merry laugh, which he
had once thought rude. Her careful forethought for

his comfort, too, he missed—confessing in his secret
heart at least that Redstone Hall was nothing without
Marian.

And now, with these influences at work to make
him what he ought to be, we leave him awhile in his
sorrow, and follow the fugitive bride.