'Revenge may have her own;
Roused discipline aloud proclaims their cause,
And injured navies urge their broken laws.'
BYRON.
Margaret began to wonder whether all offers were as unexpected
beforehand,--as distressing at the time of their occurrence, as
the two she had had. An involuntary comparison between Mr. Lennox
and Mr. Thornton arose in her mind. She had been sorry, that an
expression of any other feeling than friendship had been lured
out by circumstances from Henry Lennox. That regret was the
predominant feeling, on the first occasion of her receiving a
proposal. She had not felt so stunned--so impressed as she did
now, when echoes of Mr. Thornton's voice yet lingered about the
room. In Lennox's case, he seemed for a moment to have slid over
the boundary between friendship and love; and the instant
afterwards, to regret it nearly as much as she did, although for
different reasons.
In Mr. Thornton's case, as far as Margaret
knew, there was no intervening stage of friendship. Their
intercourse had been one continued series of opposition. Their
opinions clashed; and indeed, she had never perceived that he had
cared for her opinions, as belonging to her, the individual. As
far as they defied his rock-like power of character, his
passion-strength, he seemed to throw them off from him with
contempt, until she felt the weariness of the exertion of making
useless protests; and now, he had come, in this strange wild
passionate way, to make known his love For, although at first it
had struck her, that his offer was forced and goaded out of him
by sharp compassion for the exposure she had made of
herself,--which he, like others, might misunderstand--yet, even
before he left the room,--and certainly, not five minutes after,
the clear conviction dawned upon her, shined bright upon her,
that he did love her; that he had loved her; that he would love
her. And she shrank and shuddered as under the fascination of
some great power, repugnant to her whole previous life. She crept
away, and hid from his idea. But it was of no use. To parody a
line out of Fairfax's Tasso-'His strong idea wandered through her thought.'
She disliked him the more for having mastered her inner will. How
dared he say that he would love her still, even though she shook
him off with contempt? She wished she had spoken more--stronger.
Sharp, decisive speeches came thronging into her mind, now that
it was too late to utter them. The deep impression made by the
interview, was like that of a horror in a dream; that will not
leave the room although we waken up, and rub our eyes, and force
a stiff rigid smile upon our lips. It is there--there, cowering
and gibbering, with fixed ghastly eyes, in some corner of the
chamber, listening to hear whether we dare to breathe of its
presence to any one. And we dare not; poor cowards that we are!