The sky was clear, the waters calm, the sands bare and glistening in the
early sunbeams; no vestige of the storm or of the bloody outrage of the
night remained--all was peace and beauty. In the distance was a single
snow-white sail, floating swan-like on the bosom of the blue waters. All
around was beauty and peace, yet from the young man's tortured bosom
peace had fled, and remorse, vulture-like, had struck its talons deep
into his heart. He called himself a murderer, the destroyer of Marian;
he said it was his selfishness, his willfulness, his treachery, that had
exposed her to this danger, and brought her to this fate! Some outlaw,
some waterman, or fugitive negro had robbed and murdered her. Marian
usually wore a very valuable watch; probably, also, she had money about
her person--enough to have tempted the cupidity of some lawless wretch.
He shrank in horror from pursuing conjecture--it was worse than torture,
worse than madness to him. Oh, blindness and frenzy; why had he not
thought of these dangers so likely to beset her solitary path? Why had
he so recklessly exposed her to them? Vain questions, alas! vain as was
his self-reproach, his anguish and despair!
CHAPTER XXVII.
THE MISSING MARIAN.
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