'John,' said his mother, 'this lady is Mrs. Shaw, Miss Hale's

aunt. I am sorry to say, that Miss Hale's call is to wish us

good-bye.' 'You are going then!' said he, in a low voice.

'Yes,' said Margaret. 'We leave to-morrow.' 'My son-in-law comes this evening to escort us,' said Mrs. Shaw.

Mr. Thornton turned away. He had not sat down, and now he seemed

to be examining something on the table, almost as if he had

discovered an unopened letter, which had made him forget the

present company. He did not even seem to be aware when they got

up to take leave. He started forwards, however, to hand Mrs. Shaw

down to the carriage. As it drove up, he and Margaret stood close

together on the door-step, and it was impossible but that the

recollection of the day of the riot should force itself into both

their minds. Into his it came associated with the speeches of the

following day; her passionate declaration that there was not a

man in all that violent and desperate crowd, for whom she did not

care as much as for him. And at the remembrance of her taunting

words, his brow grew stern, though his heart beat thick with

longing love. 'No!' said he, 'I put it to the touch once, and I

lost it all. Let her go,--with her stony heart, and her

beauty;--how set and terrible her look is now, for all her

loveliness of feature! She is afraid I shall speak what will

require some stern repression. Let her go. Beauty and heiress as

she may be, she will find it hard to meet with a truer heart than

mine. Let her go!' And there was no tone of regret, or emotion of any kind in the

voice with which he said good-bye; and the offered hand was taken

with a resolute calmness, and dropped as carelessly as if it had

been a dead and withered flower. But none in his household saw

Mr. Thornton again that day. He was busily engaged; or so he

said.

Margaret's strength was so utterly exhausted by these visits,

that she had to submit to much watching, and petting, and sighing

'I-told-you-so's,' from her aunt. Dixon said she was quite as bad

as she had been on the first day she heard of her father's death;

and she and Mrs. Shaw consulted as to the desirableness of

delaying the morrow's journey. But when her aunt reluctantly

proposed a few days' delay to Margaret, the latter writhed her

body as if in acute suffering, and said: 'Oh! let us go. I cannot be patient here. I shall not get well

here. I want to forget.' So the arrangements went on; and Captain Lennox came, and with

him news of Edith and the little boy; and Margaret found that the

indifferent, careless conversation of one who, however kind, was

not too warm and anxious a sympathiser, did her good. She roused

up; and by the time that she knew she might expect Higgins, she

was able to leave the room quietly, and await in her own chamber

the expected summons.




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