"No, dear; don"t think that I am impertinently curious. I am sure youwould have told me if you had felt that you could return his regard. Didhe speak to you about it?"
No answer at first; but by-and-by a little gentle reluctant "Yes."
"And you refused him?"
A long sigh; a more helpless, nerveless attitude, and another "Yes." Butbefore her father could speak, Margaret lifted up her face, rosy withsome beautiful shame, and, fixing her eyes upon him, said:
"Now, papa, I have told you this, and I cannot tell you more; and thenthe whole thing is so painful to me; every word and action connectedwith it is so unspeakably bitter, that I cannot bear to think of it. Oh,papa, I am sorry to have lost you this friend, but I could not help it--butoh! I am very sorry." She sate down on the ground, and laid her head onhis knees.
"I too, am sorry, my dear. Mr. Bell quite startled me when he said, someidea of the kind--"
"Mr. Bell! Oh, did Mr. Bell see it?"
"A little; but he took it into his head that you--how shall I say it?--thatyou were not ungraciously disposed towards Mr. Thornton. I knew thatcould never be. I hoped the whole thing was but an imagination; but Iknew too well what your real feelings were to suppose that you couldever like Mr. Thornton in that way. But I am very sorry."
They were very quiet and still for some minutes. But, on stroking hercheek in a caressing way soon after, he was almost shocked to find herface wet with tears. As he touched her, she sprang up, and smiling withforced brightness, began to talk of the Lennoxes with such a vehementdesire to turn the conversation, that Mr. Hale was too tender-hearted totry to force it back into the old channel.
"To-morrow--yes, to-morrow they will be back in Harley Street. Oh,how strange it will be! I wonder what room they will make into thenursery? Aunt Shaw will be happy with the baby. Fancy Edith amamma! And Captain Lennox--I wonder what he will do with himselfnow he has sold out!"
"I"ll tell you what," said her father, anxious to indulge her in this freshsubject of interest, "I think I must spare you for a fortnight just to run upto town and see the travellers. You could learn more, by half an hour"sconversation with Mr. Henry Lennox, about Frederick"s chances, than ina dozen of these letters of his; so it would, in fact, be uniting businesswith pleasure."
"No, papa, you cannot spare me, and what"s more, I won"t be spared."
Then after a pause, she added: "I am losing hope sadly about Frederick;he is letting us down gently, but I can see that Mr. Lennox himself hasno hope of hunting up the witnesses under years and years of time. No,"
said she, "that bubble was very pretty, and very dear to our hearts; but ithas burst like many another; and we must console ourselves with beingglad that Frederick is so happy, and with being a great deal to eachother. So don"t offend me by talking of being able to spare me, papa, forI assure you you can"t."
But the idea of a change took root and germinated in Margaret"s heart,although not in the way in which her father proposed it at first. Shebegan to consider how desirable something of the kind would be to herfather, whose spirits, always feeble, now became too frequentlydepressed, and whose health, though he never complained, had beenseriously affected by his wife"s illness and death. There were the regularhours of reading with his pupils, but that all giving and no receivingcould no longer be called companion-ship, as in the old days when Mr.
Thornton came to study under him. Margaret was conscious of the wantunder which he was suffering, unknown to himself; the want of a man"sintercourse with men. At Helstone there had been perpetual occasionsfor an interchange of visits with neighbouring clergymen; and the poorlabourers in the fields, or leisurely tramping home at eve, or tendingtheir cattle in the forest, were always at liberty to speak or be spoken to.
But in Milton every one was too busy for quiet speech, or any ripenedintercourse of thought; what they said was about business, very presentand actual; and when the tension of mind relating to their daily affairswas over, they sunk into fallow rest until next morning. The workmanwas not to be found after the day"s work was done; he had gone away tosome lecture, or some club, or some beer-shop, according to his degreeof character. Mr. Hale thought of trying to deliver a course of lectures atsome of the institutions, but he contemplated doing this so much as aneffort of duty, and with so little of the genial impulse of love towardshis work and its end, that Margaret was sure that it would not be welldone until he could look upon it with some kind of zest.