CHAPTER VII.

MARION MERLIN.

At the age of eighteen I was betrothed to Walter Howard, a young man of polished manners, elegant exterior, and connected with one of the first families of New York. I was beautiful, so the world said,--eighteen and an heiress. My father was one of the wealthiest merchants of New York, with a princely mansion in town, and as princely a mansion, for summer residence, in the country. I had lost my mother, at an age so early, that I can but dimly remember her pallid face. At eighteen, I was my father's only and idolized child.

Returning from boarding-school, where, apart from the busy world, I had passed four years of a life, which afterward was to be marked by deeds so singular, yes, unnatural, I was invested by my father, with the keys of his city mansion, and installed as its mistress. Still kept apart from the world,--for my father guarded me from its wiles and temptations, with an eye of sleepless jealousy,--I was left to form ideas of my future life, from the fancies of my day-dreams, or from what knowledge I had gleaned from books. Walter was my father's head clerk. In that capacity he often visited our mansion. To see him was to love him. His form was graceful, and yet manly; his complexion a rich bronze; his eyes dark, penetrating and melancholy. As for myself, a picture which, amid all my changing fortunes, I have preserved as a relic of happy and innocent days, shows a girl of eighteen, with a form that may well be called voluptuous, and a face, (shaded by masses of raven hair,) which, with its clear bronzed complexion, large hazel eyes, and arching brows, tells the story of my descent on my mother's side,--she was a West-Indian, and there is Spanish blood in my veins. My acquaintance with Walter, ripened into warm and passionate love, and one day, my father surprised me, as I hung upon my lover's breast, and instead of chiding us, said with a look of unmistakable affection:

"Right, Walter. You have won my daughter's love. When you return from the West Indies, you shall be married; and once married, instead of my head clerk, you shall be my partner."

My father was a venerable man, with a kindly face and snow-white hair: as he spoke the tears ran down his cheeks, for (as I afterward ascertained,) my marriage with Walter, the orphan of one of the dearest friends of his boyhood, had been the most treasured hope of his life for years.

Walter left for Havana, intrusted with an important and secret commission from my father. He was to be absent only a month. Why was it, on the day of his departure, as he strained me to his breast and covered my face with his passionate kisses, that a deep presentiment chilled my blood? O had he never left my side, what a world of agony, of despair,--yes of crime,--would have been spared to me!

"Be true to me, Marion!" these were his last words,--"in a month I will return--"

"True to you! can you doubt it Walter? True until death,--" and we parted.

I was once more alone, in my father's splendid mansion. One evening he came home, but not with his usual kindly smile. He was pale and troubled, and seemed to avoid my gaze. Without entering the sitting-room, he went at once to his library, and locked himself in, having first directed the servant to call him, in case a Mr. Issachar Burley inquired for him. It was after eight when Mr. Burley called, and was shown into the parlor, while the servant went to announce him to my father.

"Miss Marion, I believe!" he said, as he beheld me by the light of the astral-lamp,--and then a singular look passed over his face; a look which at that time I could not define, but which afterward was made terribly clear to me. This Mr. Burley, who thus for the first time entered my father's house, was by no means prepossessing in his exterior. Over fifty years of age, corpulent in form, bald-headed, his florid face bore the undeniable traces of a life, exhausted in sensual indulgences.

While I was taking a survey of this singular visitor, the servant entered the parlor,--

"Mr. Burley will please walk up into the library," he said.

"Good night, dear," said Mr. Burley with a bow, and a gesture that had as much of insolence as of politeness in it,--"By-by,--we'll meet again."

He went up stairs, and my father and he, were closeted together for at least two hours. At ten o'clock I was sent for. I entered the library, trembling, I know not why; and found my father and Mr. Burley, seated on opposite sides of a table overspread with papers,--a hanging lamp, suspended over the table, gave light to the scene. My father was deadly pale.

"Sit down, Marion," he said, in a voice so broken and changed, that I would not have recognized it, had I not seen his face,--"Mr. Burley has something to say to you."

"Mr. Burley!" I ejaculated,--"What can he have to say to me?"

"Speak to her,--speak," said my father,--"speak, for I cannot,--" and resting his hands on the table, his head dropped on his breast.

"Sit down, my dear," exclaimed Burley, in a tone of easy familiarity,--"I have a little matter of business with your father. There's no use of mincing words. Your father, my dear, is a ruined man."

I sank into a chair, and my father's groan confirmed Burley's words.

"Hopelessly involved," continued Mr. Burley,--"Unless he can raise three hundred thousand dollars by to-morrow noon, he is a _dishonored_ man. Do you hear me, my dear? Dishonored!"

"Dishonored!" groaned my father burying his head in his hands.

"And more than this," continued Burley, "Your father, among his many mercantile speculations, has dabbled a little,--yes more than a little,--in the African slave-trade. He has relations with certain gentlemen at Havana, which once known to our government, would consign him to the convict's cell."

The words of the man filled me with indignation, and with horror. Half fainting as I was, I felt the blood boil in my veins.

"Father, rebuke the liar,"--I said as I placed my hand on his shoulder.--"Raise your face, and tell him that he is the coiner of a falsehood, as atrocious as it is foolish--"

My father did not reply.

"And more than this,"--Burley went on, as though he had not heard me,--"I have it in my power, either to relieve your father from his financial embarrassments, or,--" he paused and surveyed me from head to foot, "or to denounce him to the government as one guilty, of something which it calls _piracy_,--to wit, an intimate relationship with the African slave trade."

Again my father groaned, but did not raise his face.

The full truth burst upon me. My father was ruined, and in this man's power. Confused,--half maddened, I flung myself upon my knees, and clasped Burley by the hands.

"O, you will not ruin my father," I shrieked.--"You will save him."

Burley took my hands within his own, and bent down, until I felt his breath upon my cheeks--

"Yes, I will save him," he whispered,--"That is, for a price,--your hand, my dear."

His look could not be mistaken. At the same moment, my father raised his face from his hands,--it was pallid, distorted, stamped with despair.

"It is the only way, Marion," he said in a broken voice,--"Otherwise your father must rot in a felon's cell."

Amid all the misfortunes of a varied and changeful life, the agony of that moment has never once been forgotten. I felt the blood rush to my head--

"Be it so," I cried,--and fell like a dead woman on the floor, at the feet of Mr. Issachar Burley.