"Impossible!" he replied, aloud, to the frightful conjecture. "I
will not cherish the thought for a single moment."
But a suggestion like this, once made to a man in his circumstances,
is not to be cast out of the mind by a simple act of rejection. It
becomes a living thing, and manifests its perpetual presence. Turn
his thought from it as he would, back to that point it came, and the
oftener this occurred, the more corroborating suggestions arrayed
themselves by its side.
Mr. Markland was alone in the library, with Mr. Lyon's hastily read
letters before him, and yet pondering, with an unquiet spirit, the
varied relations in which he had become placed, when the door was
quietly pushed open, and he heard light footsteps crossing the room.
Turning, he met the anxious face of his daughter, who, no longer
able to bear the suspense that was torturing her, had overcome all
shrinking maiden delicacy, and now came to ask if, enclosed in
either of his letters, was one for her. She advanced close to where
he was sitting, and, as he looked at her with a close observation,
he saw that her countenance was almost colourless, her lips rigid,
and her heart beating with an oppressed motion, as if half the blood
in her body had flowed back upon it.
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