It was a fearful struggle, and often and often she yearned to confess
all to her father, whom she loved with no common love; but she knew
too well, not only the grief such tidings would be to him, but what
his judgment must be, and she shrunk in agony from the condemnation
of her feelings by another, constantly as she was condemning them
herself.
Henriquez had been absent from the vale during Stanley's unexpected
visit, and he tarried long enough to excite the alarm, not only of his
child but of their domestics; nor was its cause when explained likely
to ease Marie's anxiety. He had been attacked on the day of his
intended return by a strange sensation of giddiness, followed by
insensibility, which appeared to have weakened him more than he had
thought compatible with so brief an illness. He made light of it, but
still he was uneasy, not that he feared death himself, but that it
might take him from his Marie ere his wishes were accomplished, and
her earthly happiness, as he thought, secured. The first attack was
but the forerunner of others, sometimes very slight and brief, at
others longer and more alarming, rendering Marie more and more
determined to keep her fatal secret from him; for it appeared to her
that any stronger emotion than customary would be followed by those
attacks; and as her love for him seemed to increase in intensity with
the anxiety his precarious health occasioned, so did her dread of
occasioning him aught of grief.
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