Lyon this had given instinctive warning; but his personal attractions were so great, and her father’s approving confidence of the man so strong, that the inward monitor was unheeded. But, after a long silence following a series of impassioned letters, to find herself alluded to in this cold and distant way revealed a state of feeling in the man she loved so wildly, that proved him false beyond all question. Like one standing on a mountain-top, who suddenly finds the ground giving way beneath his feet, she felt herself sweeping down through a fearfully intervening space, and fell, with scarcely a pulse of life remaining, on the rocky ground beneath. She caught at no object in her quick descent, for none tempted her hand. It was one swift plunge, and the shock was over.
“No, father,” she said, in a calmer voice, lifting her face from his bosom—”it is not pride, nor womanly indignation at a deep wrong. I speak of him as he is now known to me. Oh, beware of him! Let not his shadow fall darker on our household.”
The effect of this conversation in no way quieted the apprehensions of Mr. Markland, but made his anxieties the deeper. That Lyon had been false to his child was clear even to him; and the searching questions of Fanny he could not banish from his thoughts.
“All things confirm the necessity of my journey,” he said, when alone, and in close debate with himself on the subject. “I fear that I am in the toils of a serpent, and that escape, even with life, is doubtful. By what a strange infatuation I have been governed! Alas! into what a fearful jeopardy have I brought the tangible good things given me by a kind Providence, by grasping at what dazzled my eyes as of supremely greater value! Have I not been lured by a shadow, forgetful of the substance in possession?”
CHAPTER XXXI.
“I SHOULD have been contented amid so much beauty, and with even more than my share of earthly blessings.” Thus Mr. Markland communed with himself, walking about alone, near the close of the day preceding that on which his appointed journey was to begin. “Am I not acting over again that old folly of the substance and shadow? Verily, I believe it is so. Ah! will we ever be satisfied with any achievement in this life? To-morrow I leave all by which I am here surrounded, and more, a thousand-fold more—my heart’s beloved ones; and for what? To seek the fortune I was mad enough to cast from me into a great whirlpool, believing that it would be thrown up at my feet again, with every disk of gold changed into a sparkling diamond. I have waited eagerly on the shore for the returning tide, but yet there is no reflux, and now my last hope rests on the diver’s strength and doubtful fortune. I must make the fearful plunge.”
A cold shudder ran through the frame of Mr. Markland, as he realized, too distinctly, the image he had conjured up. A feeling of weakness and irresolution succeeded.
“Ah!” he murmured to himself, “if all had not been so blindly cast upon this venture, I might be willing to wait the issue, providing for the worst by a new disposition of affairs, and by new efforts here. But I was too eager, too hopeful, too insanely confident. Every thing is now beyond my reach.”
This was the state of his mind when Mr. Allison, whom he had not met in a familiar manner for several weeks, joined him, saying, as he came up with extended hand, and fine face, bright with the generous interest in others that always burned in his heart—
“What is this I hear, Mr. Markland? Is it true that you are going away, to be absent for some months? Mr. Willet was telling me about it this morning.”
“It is too true,” replied Mr. Markland, assuming a cheerful air, yet betraying much of the troubled feeling that oppressed him. “The calls of business cannot always be disregarded.”
“No—but, if I understand aright, you contemplate going a long distance South—somewhere into Central America.”
“Such is my destination. Having been induced to invest money in a promising enterprise in that far-off region, it is no more than right to look after my interests there.”
“With so much to hold your thoughts and interests here,” said Mr. Allison, “I can hardly understand why you should let them wander off so far from home.”
“And I can hardly understand it myself,” returned Mr. Markland, in a lower tone of voice, as if the admission were made reluctantly. “But so it is. I am but a man, and man is always dissatisfied with his actual, and always looking forward to some good time coming. Ah, sir, this faculty of imagination that we possess is one of the curses entailed by the fall. It is forever leading us off from a true enjoyment of what we have. It has no faith in to-day—no love for the good and beautiful that really exists.”
“I can show you a person whose imagination plays no truant pranks like this,” replied Mr. Allison. “And this shall be at least one exception to your rule.”
“Name that person,” was the half-incredulous response.
“Your excellent wife,” said Mr. Allison.
For some moments Mr. Markland stood with his eyes cast down; then, lifting them to the face of the old man, he said:
“The reference is true. But, if she be not the only exception, the number who, like her, can find the best reward in the present, are, alas! but few.”
“If not found in the present, Mr. Markland, will it ever be found? Think!”
“Never!” There was an utterance of grief in the deep tone that thus responded-for conviction had come like a quick flash upon his heart.
“But who finds it, Mr. Allison?” he said, shortly after, speaking with stern energy. “Who comprehends the present and the actual? who loves it sufficiently? Ah, sir! is the present ever what a fond, cheating imagination prefigured it?”
“And knowing this so well,” returned the old man, “was it wise for you to build so largely on the future as you seem to have done?”
“No, it was not wise.” The answer came with a bitter emphasis.
“We seek to escape the restlessness of unsatisfied desire,” said Mr. Allison, “by giving it more stimulating food, instead of firmly repressing its morbid activities. Think you not that there is something false in the life we are leading here, when we consider how few and brief are the days in which we experience a feeling of rest and satisfaction? And if our life be false—or, in other words, our life-purposes—what hope for us is there in any change of pursuit or any change of scene?”
“None—none,” replied Mr. Markland.
“We may look for the good time coming, but look in vain. Its morning will never break over the distant
