"No doubt she can tell where Mary is."

"I think it more than probable."

"Then I will see her at once."

"Had you not better wait a little longer? I should be sorry to attract attention, or cause remark about the matter, which would be the result, if it got out that you went in search of her after eleven o'clock at night."

This had the effect to cause Mr. Lester to wait little longer. But when the clock struck twelve, he could restrain himself no further.

Taking up his hat, he hurried off in the direction of Mrs.

Martindale's.

"Is Mrs. Martindale at home?" he asked of the servant, who, after he had rung three or four times, found her way to the door.

"No, sir," was the reply.

"Where is she?"

"I do not know, sir."

"Will she be here to-night?"

"No, sir."

"Is she in the habit of staying away at night?"

"No, sir."

"Where did she go early in the evening?"

"I do not know, sir."

Disappointed, and doubly alarmed, Mr. Lester turned away, and retraced his steps homeward.

"Did you see her?" eagerly inquired his wife, as he entered.

"She is not at home."

"Where is she?"

"The stupid servant could not or would not tell."

"Indeed, indeed, I do not like the appearance of all this," said Mrs. Lester, with a troubled countenance.

"Nor do I. I am sadly afraid all is not right in regard to Mary."

"But she certainly could not be induced to go away with any one--in a word, to marry clandestinely."

"I should hope not. But one so innocent and unsuspecting as Mary--one with so much natural goodness of character--is most easily led away by the specious and designing, who can easily obscure their minds, and take from them their own freedom of action. For this reason, we should have guarded her much more carefully than we have done."

For two hours longer did the anxious parents wait and watch for Mary's return, but in vain. They then retired to take a brief but troubled repose.

Early on the next morning, in going into Mary's room, her mother found a letter for her, partly concealed among the leaves of a favourite volume that lay upon her table. It contained the information that she was about to marry Mr. Fenwick, and gave Mrs.

Martindale as authority for the excellence of his character: The letter was written on the previous day, and the marriage was to take place that night.

With a stifled cry of anguish, Mrs. Lester sprang down the stairs, on comprehending the tenor of the letter, and, placing it in the hands of her husband, burst into tears. He read it through without visible emotion; but the intelligence fell like a dead, oppressive weight upon his heart--almost checking respiration. Slowly he seated himself upon a chair, while his head sank upon his bosom, and thus he remained almost motionless for nearly half an hour, while his wife wept and sobbed by his side.

"Mary," he at last said, in a mournful tone--"she is our child yet."

"Wretched--wretched girl!" responded Mrs. Lester; "how could she so fatally deceive herself and us?"

"Fatally, indeed, has she done so! But upon her own head will the deepest sorrow rest. I only wish that we were altogether guiltless of this sacrifice."

"But may it not turn out that this Mr. Fenwick will not prove so unworthy of her as we fear?--that he will do all in his power to make her happy?"

"Altogether a vain hope, Mary. He is evidently not a man of principle, for no man of principle would have thus clandestinely stolen away our child--which he could only have done by first perverting or blinding her natural perceptions of right. Can such an one make any pure-minded, unselfish woman happy? No!--the hope is altogether vain. He must have been conscious of his unworthiness, or he would have come forward like a man and asked for her."

Mr. and Mrs. Lester loved their daughter too well to cast her off.

They at once brought her, with her husband, back to her home again, and endeavoured to make that home as pleasant to her as ever. But, alas! few months had pa.s.sed away, before the scales fell from her eyes--before she perceived that the man upon whom she had lavished the wealth of her young heart's affections, could not make her happy. A weak and vain young man, Fenwick could not stand the honour of being Mr. Lester's son-in-law, without having his brain turned.

He became at once an individual of great consequence--a.s.sumed airs, and played the fool so thoroughly, as not only to disgust her friends and family, but even Mary herself. His business was far too limited for a man of his importance. He desired to relinquish the retail line, and get into the jobbing trade. He stated his plans to Mr. Lester, and boldly asked for a capital of twenty thousand dollars to begin with. This was of course refused. That gentleman thought it wisdom to support him in idleness, if it came to that, rather than risk the loss of a single dollar in a business in which there was a moral certainty of failure.

Disgusted with his father-in-law's narrow-mindedness, as he called it, Fenwick attempted to make the desired change on the strength of his own credit. This scheme likewise proved a failure. And that was not all, as in the course of a twelve-month his creditors wound him up, and he came out a bankrupt.

Mr. Lester then offered him a situation as clerk in his own store; but Fenwick was a young man of too much consequence to be clerk to any man. If he could not be in business himself, he, would do no business at all, he said. That he was determined on. He could do business as well as any one, and had as much right to be in business as any one.

The consequence was, that idle habits took him into idle company, and idle company led him on to dissipation. Three years after his marriage with Mary Lester, he was a drunkard and a gambler, and she a drooping, almost heart-broken young wife and mother.

One night, nearly four years from the date of her unhappy marriage, Mary sat alone in her chamber, by the side of the bed upon which slept sweetly and peacefully a little girl nearly three years of age, the miniature image of herself. Her face was very thin and pale, and there was a wildness in her restless eyes, that betokened a troubled spirit. The time had worn on until nearly one o'clock, and still she made no movement to retire; but seemed waiting for some one, and yet not in anxious expectation. At last the door below was opened, and footsteps came shuffling along the hall, and noisily up the stairs. In a moment or two, her room-door was swung widely open, and her husband staggered in, so drunk that he could scarcely keep his feet.

"And pray what are you doing up at this time of night, ha?" said he, in drunken anger.

"You did not like it, you know, because I was in bed last night, and so I have sat up for you this time," his wife replied, soothingly.

"Well, you've no business to be up this late, let me tell you, madam. And I'm not agoing to have it. So bundle off to bed with you, in less than no time!"

"O Henry! how can you talk so to me?" poor Mary said, bursting into tears.

"You needn't go to blubbering in that way, I can tell you, madam; so just shut up! I won't have it! And see here: I must have three hundred dollars out of that stingy old father of yours to-morrow, and you must get it for me. If you don't, why, just look out for squalls."

As he said this, he threw himself heavily upon the bed, and came with his whole weight upon the body of his child. Mrs. Fenwick screamed out, sprang to the bedside, and endeavoured to drag him off the little girl. Not understanding what she meant, he rose up quickly, and threw her from him with such force, as to dash her against the wall opposite, when she fell senseless upon the floor.

Just at this moment, her father, who had overheard his first angry words, burst into the room, and with the energy of suddenly aroused indignation, seized Fenwick by the collar, dragged him down-stairs, and thence threw him into the street from his hall-door, which he closed and locked after him--vowing, as he did so, that the wretch should never again cross his threshold.

All night long did poor Mrs. Fenwick lie, her senses locked in insensibility; and all through the next day she remained in the same state, in spite of every effort to restore her. Her husband several times attempted to gain admittance, but was resolutely refused.

"He never crosses my door-stone again!" the old man said; and to that resolution he determined to adhere.

Another night and another day pa.s.sed, and still another night, and yet the heart-stricken young wife showed no signs of returning consciousness. It was toward evening on the fourth day, that the family, with Mrs. Martindale, who had called in, were gathered round her bed, in a state of painful and gloomy anxiety, waiting for, yet almost despairing again to see her restored to consciousness. All at once she opened her eyes, and looked up calmly into the faces of those who surrounded her bed.

"Where is little Mary?" she at length asked.