'Nay,' said he, 'I will ask no farther. I may be putting

temptation in your way. At present, believe me, your secret is

safe with me. But you run great risks, allow me to say, in being

so indiscreet. I am now only speaking as a friend of your

father's: if I had any other thought or hope, of course that is

at an end. I am quite disinterested.' 'I am aware of that,' said Margaret, forcing herself to speak in

an indifferent, careless way. 'I am aware of what I must appear

to you, but the secret is another person's, and I cannot explain

it without doing him harm.' 'I have not the slightest wish to pry into the gentleman's

secrets,' he said, with growing anger. 'My own interest in you

is--simply that of a friend. You may not believe me, Miss Hale,

but it is--in spite of the persecution I'm afraid I threatened

you with at one time--but that is all given up; all passed away.

You believe me, Miss Hale?' 'Yes,' said Margaret, quietly and sadly.

'Then, really, I don't see any occasion for us to go on walking

together. I thought, perhaps you might have had something to say,

but I see we are nothing to each other. If you're quite

convinced, that any foolish passion on my part is entirely over,

I will wish you good afternoon.' He walked off very hastily.

'What can he mean?' thought Margaret,--'what could he mean by

speaking so, as if I were always thinking that he cared for me,

when I know he does not; he cannot. His mother will have said all

those cruel things about me to him. But I won't care for him. I

surely am mistress enough of myself to control this wild,

strange, miserable feeling, which tempted me even to betray my

own dear Frederick, so that I might but regain his good

opinion--the good opinion of a man who takes such pains to tell

me that I am nothing to him. Come poor little heart! be cheery

and brave. We'll be a great deal to one another, if we are thrown

off and left desolate.' Her father was almost startled by her merriment this afternoon.

She talked incessantly, and forced her natural humour to an

unusual pitch; and if there was a tinge of bitterness in much of

what she said; if her accounts of the old Harley Street set were

a little sarcastic, her father could not bear to check her, as he

would have done at another time--for he was glad to see her shake

off her cares. In the middle of the evening, she was called down

to speak to Mary Higgins; and when she came back, Mr. Hale

imagined that he saw traces of tears on her cheeks. But that

could not be, for she brought good news--that Higgins had got

work at Mr. Thornton's mill. Her spirits were damped, at any

rate, and she found it very difficult to go on talking at all,

much more in the wild way that she had done. For some days her

spirits varied strangely; and her father was beginning to be

anxious about her, when news arrived from one or two quarters

that promised some change and variety for her. Mr. Hale received

a letter from Mr. Bell, in which that gentleman volunteered a

visit to them; and Mr. Hale imagined that the promised society of

his old Oxford friend would give as agreeable a turn to

Margaret's ideas as it did to his own. Margaret tried to take an

interest in what pleased her father; but she was too languid to

care about any Mr. Bell, even though he were twenty times her

godfather. She was more roused by a letter from Edith, full of

sympathy about her aunt's death; full of details about herself,

her husband, and child; and at the end saying, that as the

climate did not suit, the baby, and as Mrs. Shaw was talking of

returning to England, she thought it probable that Captain Lennox

might sell out, and that they might all go and live again in the

old Harley Street house; which, however, would seem very

incomplete with-out Margaret. Margaret yearned after that old

house, and the placid tranquillity of that old well-ordered,

monotonous life. She had found it occasionally tiresome while it

lasted; but since then she had been buffeted about, and felt so

exhausted by this recent struggle with herself, that she thought

that even stagnation would be a rest and a refreshment. So she

began to look towards a long visit to the Lennoxes, on their

return to England, as to a point--no, not of hope--but of

leisure, in which she could regain her power and command over

herself. At present it seemed to her as if all subjects tended

towards Mr. Thornton; as if she could not for-get him with all

her endeavours. If she went to see the Higginses, she heard of

him there; her father had resumed their readings together, and

quoted his opinions perpetually; even Mr. Bell's visit brought

his tenant's name upon the tapis; for he wrote word that he

believed he must be occupied some great part of his time with Mr.

Thornton, as a new lease was in preparation, and the terms of it

must be agreed upon.




readonlinefreebook.com Copyright 2016 - 2024