A minute earlier, and that letter would have come
into his hands. How instantly would a knowledge of its contents have
affected all the purposes that were now leading him on with almost
the blindness of infatuation. The man he was trusting so implicitly
would have instantly stood revealed as a scheming, unprincipled
adventurer. In such estimation, at least, he must have been held by
Mr. Markland, and his future actions would have been governed by
that estimate.
The answer to Fanny's earnest, almost peremptory demand, to be
released from the injunction not to tell her parents of Mr. Lyon's
return, was in her possession, and the instant she could get away to
her own room, she tore the letter open. The reader already knows its
contents. The effect upon her was paralizing. He had said that she
was in freedom to speak, but the consequences portrayed were too
fearful to contemplate. In freedom? No! Instead of loosing the cords
with which he had bound her spirit, he had only drawn them more
tightly. She was in freedom to speak, but the very first word she
uttered would sound the knell of her young heart's fondest hopes.
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