The String of Pearls (1850), p. 26

"I cannot—dare not do so, unless you tell me he lives. Tell me that Mark Ingestrie lives, and then I shall be all patience: tell me that, and you shall not hear a murmur from me. Speak the word at once—at once! It is cruel, believe me, it is cruel to keep me in this suspense."
"This is one of the saddest errands I ever came upon," said the stranger, as he led Johanna to a seat. "Recollect, lady, what creatures of accident and chance we are—recollect how the slightest circumstances will affect us, in driving us to the confines of despair, and remember by how frail a tenure the best of us hold existence."
"No more—no more!" shrieked Johanna, as she clasped her hands—"I know all now, and am desolate."
She let her face drop upon her handstand shook as with a convulsion of grief.
"Mark, Mark !" she cried, "you have gone from me! I thought not this—I thought not this. Oh, Heaven! why have I lived so long as to have the capacity to listen to such fearful tidings ? Lost—lost—all lost! God of Heaven! what a wilderness the world is now to me!"
"Let me pray you, lady, to subdue this passion of grief, and listen truly to what I shall unfold to you. There is much to hear and much to speculate upon; and if, from all that I have learnt, I cannot, dare not tell you that Mark Ingestrie lives, I likewise shrink from telling you he is no more."
"Speak again—say those words again! There is a hope, then—oh, there is a hope!"
"There is a hope; and better is it that your mind should receive the first shock of the probability of the death of him whom you have so anxiously expected, and then afterwards, from what I shall relate to you, gather hope that it may not be so, than that from the first you should expect too much, and then have those expectations rudely destroyed."
"It is so—it is so; this is kind of you, and if I cannot thank you as I ought, you will know that it is because I am in a state of too great affliction so to do, and not from want of will; you will understand that—I am sure you will understand that."
"Make no excuses to me. Believe me, I can fully appreciate all that you would say, and all that you must feel. I ought to tell you who I am, that you may have confidence in what I have to relate to you. My name is Jeffery, and I am a colonel in the Indian army."
"I am much beholden to you, sir; but you bring with you a passport to my confidence, in the name of Mark Ingestrie, which is at once sufficient. I live again in the hope that you have given me of his continued existence, and in that hope I will maintain a cheerful resignation that shall enable me to bear up against all you
have to tell me, be it what it may, and with a feeling that through much suffering there may come joy at last. You shall find me very patient, ay, extremely patient—so patient that you shall scarcely see the havoc that grief has already made here."
She pressed her hands upon her breast as she spoke, and looked in his face with such an expression of tearful melancholy that it was quite heartrending to witness
it; and he, although not used to the melting mood, was compelled to pause for a few moments ere he could proceed in the task he had set himself.
"I will be as brief," he said, "as possible, consistent with stating all that is requisite for me to state, and I must commence by asking you if you are aware under what circumstances it was that Mark Ingestrie was abroad?"
"I am aware of so much, that a quarrel with his uncle, Mr. Grant, was the great cause, and that his main endeavour was to better his fortunes, so that we might be happy, and independent of those who looked not with an eye of favour upon our projected union."
"Yes, but, what I meant was, were you aware of the sort of adventure he embarked in to the Indian seas ?"
"No, I know nothing further; we met here on this spot, we parted at yonder gate, and we have never met again."