"Jane does not think she knows any one," replied Margaret. "It's
perhaps as well he shouldn't see her now for they say her face is
sadly drawn. He'll remember her with her own face better, if he
does not see her again."

With a few more sorrowful remarks they separated for the night, and
Mary was left alone in her house, to meditate on the heavy day that
had passed over her head. Everything seemed going wrong. Will
gone; her father gone--and so strangely too! And to a place so
mysteriously distant as Glasgow seemed to be to her! She had felt
his presence as a protection against Harry Carson and his threats;
and now she dreaded lest he should learn she was alone. Her heart
began to despair, too, about Jem. She feared he had ceased to love
her; and she--she only loved him more and more for his seeming
neglect. And, as if all this aggregate of sorrowful thoughts was
not enough, here was this new woe, of poor Alice's paralytic stroke.



XVIII. MURDER.

"But in his pulse there was no throb,
Nor on his lips one dying sob;
Sigh, nor word, nor struggling breath
Heralded his way to death."
--"SIEGE OF CORINTH."

"My brain runs this way and that way; 't will not fix
On aught but vengeance."