"I should like to know which of us is taking care of the other. But if youwent, I should persuade Mr. Thornton to let me give him doublelessons. We would work up the classics famously. That would be aperpetual interest. You might go on, and see Edith at Corfu, if youliked."
Margaret did not speak all at once. Then she said rather gravely: "Thankyou, papa. But I don"t want to go. We will hope that Mr. Lennox willmanage so well, that Frederick may bring Dolores to see us when theyare married. And as for Edith, the regiment won"t remain much longerin Corfu. Perhaps we shall see both of them here before another year isout."
Mr. Hale"s cheerful subjects had come to an end. Some painfulrecollection had stolen across his mind, and driven him into silence. Byand-by Margaret said:
"Papa--did you see Nicholas Higgins at the funeral? He was there, andMary too. Poor fellow! it was his way of showing sympathy. He has agood warm heart under his bluff abrupt ways."
"I am sure of it," replied Mr. Hale. "I saw it all along, even while youtried to persuade me that he was all sorts of bad things. We will go andsee them to-morrow, if you are strong enough to walk so far."
"Oh yes. I want to see them. We did not pay Mary--or rather she refusedto take it, Dixon says. We will go so as to catch him just after hisdinner, and before he goes to his work."
Towards evening Mr. Hale said:
"I half expected Mr. Thornton would have called. He spoke of a bookyesterday which he had, and which I wanted to see. He said he wouldtry and bring it to-day."
Margaret sighed. She knew he would not come. He would be toodelicate to run the chance of meeting her, while her shame must be sofresh in his memory. The very mention of his name renewed hertrouble, and produced a relapse into the feeling of depressed, preoccupiedexhaustion. She gave way to listless languor. Suddenly itstruck her that this was a strange manner to show her patience, or toreward her father for his watchful care of her all through the day. Shesate up and offered to read aloud. His eyes were failing, and he gladlyaccepted her proposal. She read well: she gave the due emphasis; buthad any one asked her, when she had ended, the meaning of what shehad been reading, she could not have told. She was smitten with afeeling of ingratitude to Mr. Thornton, inasmuch as, in the morning, shehad refused to accept the kindness he had shown her in making furtherinquiry from the medical men, so as to obviate any inquest being held.
Oh! she was grateful! She had been cowardly and false, and had shownher cowardliness and falsehood in action that could not be recalled; butshe was not ungrateful. It sent a glow to her heart, to know how shecould feel towards one who had reason to despise her. His cause forcontempt was so just, that she should have respected him less if she hadthought he did not feel contempt. It was a pleasure to feel howthoroughly she respected him. He could not prevent her doing that; itwas the one comfort in all this misery.
Late in the evening, the expected book arrived, "with Mr. Thornton"skind regards, and wishes to know how Mr. Hale is."
"Say that I am much better, Dixon, but that Miss Hale--"
"No, papa," said Margaret, eagerly--"don"t say anything about me. Hedoes not ask."
"My dear child, how you are shivering!" said her father, a few minutesafterwards. "You must go to bed directly. You have turned quite pale!"
Margaret did not refuse to go, though she was loth to leave her fatheralone. She needed the relief of solitude after a day of busy thinking, andbusier repenting.
But she seemed much as usual the next day; the lingering gravity andsadness, and the occasional absence of mind, were not unnaturalsymptoms in the early days of grief And almost in proportion to her reestablishmentin health, was her father"s relapse into his abstractedmusing upon the wife he had lost, and the past era in his life that wasclosed to him for ever.