'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!




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