“Fanny, dear!” said Mr. Markland, grasping her hand tightly.  As he did so, she leaned heavily against him, while her eyes ran eagerly over the table.

Two or three times she tried to speak, but was unable to articulate.

“What can I say to you, love?” Her father spoke in a low, sad, tender voice, that to her was prophetic of the worst.

“Is there a letter for me?” she asked, in a husky whisper.

“No, dear.”

He felt her whole frame quiver as if shocked.

“You have heard from Mr. Lyon?” She asked this after the lapse of a few moments, raising herself up as she spoke, and assuming a calmness of exterior that was little in accord with the tumult within.

“Yes.  I have three letters of different dates.”

“And none for me?”

“None.”

“Has he not mentioned my name?”

A moment Mr. Markland hesitated, and then answered—­

“Yes.”

He saw a slight, quick flush mantle her face, that grew instantly pale again.

“Will you read to me what he says?”

“If you wish me to do so.”  Mr. Markland said this almost mechanically.

“Read it.”  And as her father took from the table a letter, Fanny grasped his arm tightly, and then stood with the immovable rigidity of a statue.  She had already prophesied the worst.  The cold, and, to her, cruel words, were like chilling ice-drops on her heart.  She listened to the end, and then, with a low cry, fell against her father, happily unconscious of further suffering.  To her these brief sentences told the story of unrequited love.  How tenderly, how ardently he had written a few months gone by! and now, after a long silence, he makes to her a mere incidental allusion, and asks a “respectful remembrance!” She had heard the knell of all her dearest hopes.  Her love had become almost her life, and to trample thus upon it was like extinguishing her life.

“Fanny!  Love!  Dear Fanny!” But the distressed father called to her in vain, and in vain lifted her nerveless body erect.  The oppressed heart was stilled.

A cry of alarm quickly summoned the family, and for a short time a scene of wild terror ensued; for, in the white face of the fainting girl, all saw the image of death.  A servant was hurriedly despatched for their physician, and the body removed to one of the chambers.

But motion soon came back, feebly, to the heart; the lungs drew in the vital air, and the circle of life was restored.  When the physician arrived, nature had done all for her that could be done.  The sickness of her spirit was beyond the reach of any remedy he might prescribe.

CHAPTER XXX.

THE shock received by Fanny left her in a feeble state of mind as well as body.  For two or three days she wept almost constantly.  Then a leaden calmness, bordering on stupor, ensued, that, even more than her tears, distressed her parents.