Chapter 35

THE disaster was complete. Not a single dollar of all Markland had cast so blindly into the whirling vortex ever came back to him. Fenwick disappeared from New York, leaving behind conclusive evidence of a dark complicity with the specious Englishman, whose integrity had melted away, like snow in the sunshine, beneath the fire of a strong temptation. Honourably connected at home, shrewd, intelligent, and enterprising, he had been chosen as the executive agent of a company prepared to make large investments in a scheme that promised large results. He was deputed to bring the business before a few capitalists on this side of the Atlantic, and with what success has been seen. His recreancy to the trust reposed in him was the ruin of many.

How shall we describe the scenes that followed, too quickly, the announcement by Mr. Markland that Woodbine Lodge was no longer to remain in his possession? No member of the family could meet the stern necessity without pain. The calmest of all the troubled household was Mrs. Markland. Fanny, whom the event had awakened from a partial stupor, gradually declined into her former state. She moved about more like an automaton than a living figure; entering into all the duties and activities appertaining to the approaching change, yet seeming entirely indifferent to all external things. She was living and suffering in the inner world, more than in the outer. With the crushing out of a wild, absorbing love, had died all interest in life. She was in the external world, but, so far as any interest in passing events was concerned, not of it. Sad, young heart. A most cruel experience was thine!

When the disastrous intelligence was made known to Aunt Grace, that rather peculiar and excitable personage did not fail to say that it was nothing more than she had expected; that she had seen the storm coming, long and long ago, and had long and long ago lifted, without avail, a voice of warning. As for Mr. Lyon, he received a double share of execration--ending with the oft-repeated remark, that she had felt his shadow when he first came among them, and that she knew he must be a bad man. The ebullition subsided, in due time, and then the really good-hearted spinster gave her whole thought and active energy to the new work that was before them.

After the fierce conflict endured by Mr. Markland, ending wellnigh fatally, a calmness of spirit succeeded. With him, the worst was over; and now, he bowed himself, almost humbly, amid the ruins of his shattered fortunes, and, with a heavy heart, began to reconstruct a home, into which his beloved ones might find shelter. Any time within the preceding five or six years, an intimation on his part that he wished to enter business again would have opened the most advantageous connections. It was different now. There had been a season of overtrading. Large balances in England and France were draining the Atlantic cities of specie, and short crops made it