Margaret had all the difficulty in the world to persuade her

father not to invite Mr. Thornton. She had an indescribable

repugnance to this step being taken. The night before the

funeral, came a stately note from Mrs. Thornton to Miss Hale,

saying that, at her son's desire, their carriage should attend

the funeral, if it would not be disagreeable to the family.

Margaret tossed the note to her father.

'Oh, don't let us have these forms,' said she. 'Let us go

alone--you and me, papa. They don't care for us, or else he would

have offered to go himself, and not have proposed this sending an

empty carriage.' 'I thought you were so extremely averse to his going, Margaret,'

said Mr. Hale in some surprise.

'And so I am. I don't want him to come at all; and I should

especially dislike the idea of our asking him. But this seems

such a mockery of mourning that I did not expect it from him.'

She startled her father by bursting into tears. She had been so

subdued in her grief, so thoughtful for others, so gentle and

patient in all things, that he could not understand her impatient

ways to-night; she seemed agitated and restless; and at all the

tenderness which her father in his turn now lavished upon her,

she only cried the more.

She passed so bad a night that she was ill prepared for the

additional anxiety caused by a letter received from Frederick.

Mr. Lennox was out of town; his clerk said that he would return

by the following Tuesday at the latest; that he might possibly be

at home on Monday. Consequently, after some consideration,

Frederick had determined upon remaining in London a day or two

longer. He had thought of coming down to Milton again; the

temptation had been very strong; but the idea of Mr. Bell

domesticated in his father's house, and the alarm he had received

at the last moment at the railway station, had made him resolve

to stay in London. Margaret might be assured he would take every

precaution against being tracked by Leonards. Margaret was

thankful that she received this letter while her father was

absent in her mother's room. If he had been present, he would

have expected her to read it aloud to him, and it would have

raised in him a state of nervous alarm which she would have found

it impossible to soothe away. There was not merely the fact,

which disturbed her excessively, of Frederick's detention in

London, but there were allusions to the recognition at the last

moment at Milton, and the possibility of a pursuit, which made

her blood run cold; and how then would it have affected her

father? Many a time did Margaret repent of having suggested and

urged on the plan of consulting Mr. Lennox. At the moment, it had

seemed as if it would occasion so little delay--add so little to

the apparently small chances of detection; and yet everything

that had since occurred had tended to make it so undesirable.

Margaret battled hard against this regret of hers for what could

not now be helped; this self-reproach for having said what had at

the time appeared to be wise, but which after events were proving

to have been so foolish. But her father was in too depressed a

state of mind and body to struggle healthily; he would succumb to

all these causes for morbid regret over what could not be

recalled. Margaret summoned up all her forces to her aid. Her

father seemed to have forgotten that they had any reason to

expect a letter from Frederick that morning. He was absorbed in

one idea--that the last visible token of the presence of his wife

was to be carried away from him, and hidden from his sight. He

trembled pitifully as the undertaker's man was arranging his

crape draperies around him. He looked wistfully at Margaret; and,

when released, he tottered towards her, murmuring, 'Pray for me,

Margaret. I have no strength left in me. I cannot pray. I give

her up because I must. I try to bear it: indeed I do. I know it

is God's will. But I cannot see why she died. Pray for me,

Margaret, that I may have faith to pray. It is a great strait, my

child.' Margaret sat by him in the coach, almost supporting him in her

arms; and repeating all the noble verses of holy comfort, or

texts expressive of faithful resignation, that she could

remember. Her voice never faltered; and she herself gained

strength by doing this. Her father's lips moved after her,

repeating the well-known texts as her words suggested them; it

was terrible to see the patient struggling effort to obtain the

resignation which he had not strength to take into his heart as a

part of himself.




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