North and South
Page 42'I cannot bear it. I cannot bear to see the sufferings of others.
I think I could go through my own with patience. Oh, is there no
going back?' 'No, father,' said Margaret, looking straight at him, and
speaking low and steadily. 'It is bad to believe you in error. It
would be infinitely worse to have known you a hypocrite.' She
dropped her voice at the last few words, as if entertaining the
idea of hypocrisy for a moment in connection with her father
savoured of irreverence.
'Besides,' she went on, 'it is only that I am tired to-night;
don't think that I am suffering from what you have done, dear
papa. We can't either of us talk about it to-night, I believe,'
said she, finding that tears and sobs would come in spite of
had hers very early, when I was too busy to go to her, and I am
sure she will be glad of another now.' Railroad time inexorably wrenched them away from lovely, beloved
Helstone, the next morning. They were gone; they had seen the
last of the long low parsonage home, half-covered with
China-roses and pyracanthus--more homelike than ever in the
morning sun that glittered on its windows, each belonging to some
well-loved room. Almost before they had settled themselves into
the car, sent from Southampton to fetch them to the station, they
were gone away to return no more. A sting at Margaret's heart
made her strive to look out to catch the last glimpse of the old
church tower at the turn where she knew it might be seen above a
she silently acknowledged his greater right to the one window
from which it could be seen. She leant back and shut her eyes,
and the tears welled forth, and hung glittering for an instant on
the shadowing eye-lashes before rolling slowly down her cheeks,
and dropping, unheeded, on her dress.
They were to stop in London all night at some quiet hotel. Poor
Mrs. Hale had cried in her way nearly all day long; and Dixon
showed her sorrow by extreme crossness, and a continual irritable
attempt to keep her petticoats from even touching the unconscious
Mr. Hale, whom she regarded as the origin of all this suffering.
They went through the well-known streets, past houses which they
impatient, by her aunt's side, while that lady was making some
important and interminable decision-nay, absolutely past
acquaintances in the streets; for though the morning had been of
an incalculable length to them, and they felt as if it ought long
ago to have closed in for the repose of darkness, it was the very
busiest time of a London afternoon in November when they arrived
there. It was long since Mrs. Hale had been in London; and she
roused up, almost like a child, to look about her at the
different streets, and to gaze after and exclaim at the shops and
carriages.