 CHAPTER 38 PROMOCES FULFILLED Then proudly, proudly up she rose, though the tear was in her eye. The tear you see, think what you may, is get no word from me." Scorched ballad. It was not merely that Margaret was known to Mr. Thornton to have spoken falsely, though she imagined that for this reason only was she so turned in his opinion, but that this falsehood of hers bore a distinct reference in his mind to some other lover. He could not forget the fond and earnest look that had passed between her and some other man—the attitude of familiar confidence if not of positive endearment. The thought of this perpetually stung him. It was a picture before his eyes wherever he went and whatever he was doing. In addition to this—and he ground his teeth as he remembered it—was the hour, dusky twilight, the place, so far away from home, and comparatively unfrequented. His noblest self had said at first that all this last might be accidental, innocent, but once allow her right to love and be beloved, and had he any reason to deny her right, had not her words been severely explicit when she cast his love away from her, she might easily have been beguiled into a longer walk on to a later hour than she had anticipated. But that falsehood which showed a fatal consciousness of something wrong and to be concealed, which was unlike her—he did her that justice, though all the time it would have been a relief to believe her utterly unworthy of his esteem. It was this that made the misery—that he passionately loved her, and thought her, even with all her faults, more lovely and more excellent than any other woman—yet he deemed her so attached to some other man, so led away by her affection for him as to violate her truthful nature. The very falsehood that stained her was a proof how blindly she loved another—this dark, slight, elegant, handsome man—while he himself was rough and stern and strongly made. He lashed himself into an agony of fierce jealousy. He thought of that look, that attitude, how he would have laid his life at her feet for such tender glances, such fond detention. He mocked at himself for having valued the mechanical way in which she had protected him from the fury of the mob. Now he had seen how soft and bewitching she looked when with a man she really loved. He remembered, point by point, the sharpness of her words. There was not a man in all that crowd for whom she would not have done as much, far more readily than for him. He shared with the mob, in her desire of averting bloodshed from them. But this man, this hidden lover, shared with nobody. He had looks, words, hand-cleavings, lies, concealment, all to himself. Mr. Thornton was conscious that he had never been so irritable as he was now in all his life long. He felt inclined to give a short, abrupt answer, more like a bark than a speech, to every one that asked him a question. And this consciousness hurt his pride. He had always peaked himself on his self-control, and control himself he would. So the manner was subdued to a quiet deliberation. But the matter was even harder and sterner than common. He was more than usually silent at home, employing his evenings in a continual pace, backwards and forwards, which would have annoyed his mother exceedingly if it had been practised by anyone else, and did not tend to promote any forbearance on her part, even to this beloved son. Can you stop? Can you sit down for a moment? I have something to say to you, if you would give up that everlasting walk, walk, walk. He sat down instantly, on a chair against the wall. I want to speak to you about Betsy. She says she must leave us, that her lover's death has so affected her spirit she can't give her heart to her work. Very well. I suppose other cooks are to be met with. That's so like a man. It's not merely the cooking, it is that she knows all the ways of the house. Besides, she tells me something about your friend Miss Hale. Miss Hale is no friend of mine. Mr. Hale is my friend. I am glad to hear you say so, for if she had been your friend, what Betsy says would have annoyed you? Let me hear it, said he, with the extreme quietness of manner he had been assuming for the last few days. Betsy says that the night on which her lover—oh, forget his name, for she always calls him he—Lennards. The night on which Lennards was last seen at the station, when he was last seen on duty, in fact, Miss Hale was there, walking about with a young man who Betsy believes killed Lennards by some blow or push. Lennards was not killed by any blow or push. How do you know? Because I distinctly put the question to the surgeon of the infirmary. He told me there was an internal disease of long-standing caused by Lennards' habit of drinking to excess, that the fact of his becoming rapidly worse while in a state of intoxication settled the question as to whether the last fatal attack was caused by excessive drinking or the fall. The fall? What fall? Caused by the blow or push of which Betsy speaks. Then there was a blow or push, I believe so. And who did it? As there was no inquest in consequence of the doctor's opinion, I cannot tell you. But Miss Hale was there. No answer. And with a young man? Still no answer. At last he said, I tell you, Mother, that there was no inquest, no inquiry, no judicial inquiry, I mean. Betsy says that Wilmer, some young man she knows, who's in a grosser shop out at Crampton, can swear that Miss Hale was at the station at that hour, walking backwards and forwards with a young man. I don't see what we have to do with that. Miss Hale is at liberty to please herself. I'm glad to hear you say so, said Mrs. Thornton eagerly. It certainly signifies very little to us, not at all to you, after what has passed. But I made a promise to Miss Hale, that I would not allow her daughter to go wrong without advising and remonstrating with her. I shall certainly let her know my opinion of such conduct. I do not see any harm in what she did that evening, said Mr. Thornton, getting up and coming near to his mother. He stood by the chimney-piece with his face turned away from the room. He would not have approved of Fanny's being seen out, after dark, in a rather lonely place, walking about with a young man. I say nothing of the taste which could choose the time when her mother lay unburied for such a promenade. Should you have liked your sister to have been noticed by grosser's assistant for doing so? In the first place, as it is not many years since I myself was a draper's assistant, the mere circumstance of a grosser's assistant noticing any act does not alter the character of the act to me. And in the next place, I see a great deal of difference between Miss Hale and Fanny. I can imagine that the one may have weighty reasons, which may and ought to make her overlook any seeming impropriety in her conduct. I never knew Fanny have weighty reasons for anything. Other people must guard her. I believe Miss Hale is a guardian to herself. A pretty character of your sister, indeed. Really, John, one would have thought Miss Hale had done enough to make you clear-sighted. She drew you on to an offer by a bold display of pretended regard for you. To play you off against this very young man, I've no doubt. The whole conduct is clear to me now. You believe he is her lover, I suppose. You agree to that? He turned round to his mother. His face was very grey and grim. Yes, mother, I do believe he is her lover. When he had spoken, he turned round again. He writhed himself about, like one in bodily pain. He lent his face against his hand. Then before she could speak he turned sharp again. Mother, he is her lover, whoever he is, but she may need help and womanly counsel. There may be difficulties or temptations which I don't know. I fear there are. I don't want to know what they are. But as you have ever been a good eye and a tender mother to me, go to her, again in her confidence, and tell her what is best to be done. I know that something is wrong. Some dread must be a terrible torture to her. For God's sake, John," said his mother, now really shocked. What do you mean? What do you mean? What do you know? He did not reply to her. John, I don't know what I shan't think unless you speak. You have no right to say what you have done against her. Not against her, mother. I could not speak against her. Well, you have no right to say what you have done unless you say more. These half-expressions are what ruin a woman's character. A character? Mother, you do not dare. He faced about, and looked into her face with his flaming eyes. Then, drawing himself up into determined composure and dignity, he said, I will not say any more than this. Which is neither more nor less than the simple truth, and I am sure you believe me. I have good reason to believe that Miss Hale is in some straight and difficulty connected with an attachment, which of itself from my knowledge of Miss Hale's character is perfectly innocent and right. What my reason is, I refuse to tell. But never let me hear anyone say a word against her, implying any more serious imputation than that she now needs the counsel of some kind and gentle woman. You promise Miss Hale to be that woman? No, said Mrs. Thornton. I am happy to say I did not promise kindness and gentleness, for I felt at the time that it might be out of my power to render those to one of Miss Hale's character and disposition. I promised counsel and advice, such as I would give them to my own daughter. I shall speak to her, as I would do to Fanny, if she'd gone gallivanting with a young man in the dusk. I shall speak with relation to the circumstances I know, without being influenced either one way or another by the strong reasons which you will not confide in me. Then I shall have fulfilled my promise and done my duty. She will never bear it, said he passionately. She will have to bear it, if I speak in her dead mother's name. Well, said he, breaking away, don't tell me any more about it. I cannot endure to think of it. It will be better that you should speak to her any way than that she should not be spoken to at all. Oh, that look of love continued he between his teeth as he bolted himself into his own private room and that cursed lie which showed some terrible shame in the background to be kept from the light in which I thought she lived perpetually. Oh, Margaret, Margaret, mother, how you have tortured me. Oh, Margaret, could you not have loved me? I am but on coof and hard, but I would never have led you into any falsehood for me. The more Mrs. Thornton thought over what her son had said in pleading for a merciful judgment for Margaret's indiscretion, the more bitterly she felt inclined towards her. She took a savage pleasure in the idea of speaking her mind to her in the guise of fulfilment of a duty. She enjoyed the thought of showing herself untouched by the glamour which she was well aware Margaret had the power of throwing over many people. She snorted scornfully over the picture of the beauty of her victim, her jet-black hair, her clear smooth skin, her lucid eyes would not help to save her one word of the just and stern reproach which Mrs. Thornton spent half the night in preparing to her mind. Is Miss Hale within? She knew she was, for she had seen her at the window, and she had her feet inside the little hall before Martha had half answered her question. Margaret was sitting alone, writing to Edith, and giving her many particulars of her mother's last days. It was a softening employment, and she had to brush away the unbidden tears as Mrs. Thornton was announced. She was so gentle and ladylike in her mode of reception that her visitor was somewhat daunted, and it became impossible to utter the speech so easy of arrangement with no one to address it to. Margaret's low, rich voice was softer than usual, her manner more gracious, because in her heart she was feeling very grateful to Mrs. Thornton for the courteous attention of her call. She exerted herself to find subjects of interest for conversation. Praised Martha, the servant whom Mrs. Thornton had found for them, had asked Edith through a little Greek air about which she had spoken to Miss Thornton. Mrs. Thornton was fairly discomforted. Her sharp Damascus blade seemed out of place and useless among rose-leaves. She was silent, because she was trying to task herself up to her duty. At last she stung herself into its performance by a suspicion which, in spite of all probability, she allowed to cross her mind, that all this sweetness was put on, with a view of propitiating Mr. Thornton, that somehow the other attachment had fallen through, and that it suited Miss Hale's purpose to recall her rejected lover. Poor Margaret, there was perhaps so much of truth in the suspicion as this, that Mrs. Thornton was the mother of one whose regard she valued and feared to have lost, and this thought unconsciously added to her natural desire of pleasing one who was showing her kindness by her visit. Mrs. Thornton stood up to go, but yet she seemed to have something more to say. She cleared her throat and began. Miss Hale, I have a duty to perform. I promised your poor mother that, as far as my poor judgment went, I would not allow you to act in any way wrongly, or— She softened her speech down a little here, inadvertently, without remonstrating, at least, without offering advice, whether you took it or not. Margaret stood before her, blushing like any culprit, with her eyes dilating as she gazed at Mrs. Thornton. She thought she had come to speak to her about the falsehood she had told, that Mr. Thornton had employed her to explain the danger she had exposed herself to, of being confuted in full court. But although her heart sank, to think he had not rather chosen to come himself and upbraid her, and receive her penitence, and restore her again to his good opinion, yet she was too much humbled not to bear any blame on this subject patiently and meekly. Mrs. Thornton went on. At first, when I heard from one of my servants that he had been seen walking about with a gentleman, so far from home as the outward station at such a time of the evening, I could hardly believe it. But my son, I am sorry to say, confirmed her story. It was indiscreet to say the least. Many a young woman has lost her character before now. Margaret's eyes flashed fire. This was a new idea. This was too insulting. If Mrs. Thornton had spoken to her about the lie she had told well and good, she would have owned it and humiliated herself. But to interfere with her conduct, to speak of her character, she, Mrs. Thornton, a mere stranger, was too impertinent. She would not answer her, not one word. Mrs. Thornton saw the battle spirit in Margaret's eyes, and it called up her combativeness also. For your mother's sake I have thought it right to warn you against such improprieties. They must degrade you in the long run, in the estimation of the world, even if in fact they did not lead you to positive harm. For my mother's sake," said Margaret, in a tearful voice, I will bear much. But I cannot bear everything. She never meant me to be exposed to insult, I am sure. Insult, Miss Hale? Yes, madam," said Margaret more steadily, it is insult. What do you know of me that should lead you to suspect? Oh! said she, breaking down and covering her face with her hands. I know now. Mr. Thornton has told you. No, Miss Hale," said Mrs. Thornton, her truthfulness causing her to arrest the confession Margaret was on the point of making, though her curiosity was itching to hear it. Stop! Mr. Thornton has told me nothing. You do not know my son, you are not worthy to know him. He said this, listen, young lady, that you may understand, if you can, what sort of a man you rejected. This Milton-manufacturer, his great tender heart scorned as it was scorned, said to me only last night, go to her, I have good reason to know that she is in some straight, arising out of some attachment and she needs womanly counsel. I believe those were his very words. Father than that, beyond admitting the fact of your being at the outward station with a gentleman on the evening of the twenty-sixth, he has said nothing, not one word against you. If he has knowledge of anything which should make you sob so, he keeps it to himself. Mrs. Thornton's face was still hidden in her hands, the fingers of which were wet with tears. Mrs. Thornton was a little mollified. Come, Miss Hale, there may be circumstances I'll allow that, if explained, may take off from the seeming impropriety. Still no answer. Margaret was considering what to say. She wished to stand well with Mrs. Thornton, and yet she could not, might not, give any explanation. Mrs. Thornton grew impatient. I shall be sorry to break off an acquaintance, but for Fanny's sake, as I told my son, if Fanny had done so we should consider it a great disgrace. And Fanny might be led away. I can give you no explanation," said Margaret, in a low voice. I have done wrong, but not in the way you think or know about. I think Mr. Thornton judges me more mercifully than you. She had hard work to keep herself from choking with her tears, but I believe, madam, you mean to do right frankly. Thank you," said Mrs. Thornton, drawing herself up. I was not aware that my meaning was doubted. It is the last time I shall interfere. I was unwilling to consent to do it when your mother asked me. I had not approved of my son's attachment to you, while I only suspected it. You did not appear to me worthy of him. But when you compromised yourself as you did at the time of the riot, and exposed yourself to the comments of servants and work-people, I felt it was no longer right to set myself against my son's wish of proposing to you—a wish, by the way, which he had always denied entertaining until the day of the riot. Margaret winced, and drew in her breath with a long hissing sound, of which, however, Mrs. Thornton took no notice. He came. You had apparently changed your mind. I told my son yesterday that I thought it possible, short as was the interval, you might have heard or learnt something of this other lover. What must you think of me, madam? Mr. Margaret, throwing her head back with proud disdain, till her throat curved outwards like a swan's. You can say nothing more, Mrs. Thornton. I decline every attempt to justify myself for anything. You must allow me to leave the room. And she swept out of it, with the noiseless grace of an offended princess. Mrs. Thornton had quite enough of natural humour to make her feel the ludicrissness of the position in which she was left. There was nothing for it but to show herself out. She was not particularly annoyed at Margaret's way of behaving. She did not care enough for her for that. She had taken Mrs. Thornton's remonstrance to the fullest keenly to heart as that lady expected. And Margaret's passion at once mollified her visitor far more than any silence or reserve could have done. It showed the effect of her words. My young lady, thought Mrs. Thornton to herself, you have a pretty good temper of your own. If John and you had come together, he would have had to keep a tight hand over you to make you know your place. But I don't think you will go a-walking again with your bow at such an hour of the day in a hurry. You've too much pride and spirit in you for that. I like to see a girl fly out at the notion of being talked about. It shows then either giddy nor bold by nature. As for that girl, she might be bold, but she'd never be giddy. I'll do her that justice. Now, as to Fanny, she'd be giddy and not bold. She's no courage in her, poor thing. Mr. Thornton was not spending the morning so satisfactorily as his mother. She at any rate was fulfilling her determined purpose. He was trying to understand where he stood, what damage the strike had done him. A good deal of his capital was locked up in new and expensive machinery, and he'd also bought cotton largely with a view to some great orders which he had in hand. The strike had thrown him terribly behind hand as to the completion of these orders. Even with his own accustomed and skilled work-people he would have had some difficulty in fulfilling his engagements. As it was, the incompetence of the Irish hands who had to be trained to their work at a time requiring unusual activity was a daily annoyance. It was not a favourable hour for Higgins to make his request. But he had promised Margaret to do it at any cost, so, though every moment added to his repugnance his pride and his sullenness of temper, he stood leaning against the dead wall hour after hour, first on one leg, then on the other. At last the latch was sharply lifted and out came Mr. Thornton. —Aunt for dispute to you, sir. —Can't stay now, my man, and too late as it is. —Well, sir. —Rakannakon, wait till you come back. Mr. Thornton was half-way down the street, Higgins sighed, but it was no use. To catch him in the street was his only chance of seeing the master. If he had wrung the lodge bell, or even gone up to the house to ask for him, he would have been referred to the Overlooker. So he stood still again, vouchsaving no answer but a short nod of recognition to the few men who knew and spoke to him as the crowd drove out of the millyard at dinnertime, and scowling with all his might at the Irish knob-sticks who'd just been imported. —At last Mr. Thornton returned. —What? You there still? —I, sir, won't speak to you. —Come in here, then. —I'll stay. We'll go across the yard. The men are not come back, and we shall have it to ourselves. These good people are seer at dinner," said he, closing the door of the porter's lodge. He stopped to speak to the Overlooker. The latter said in a low tone, —Suppose you know, sir, that that man is Higgins, one of the leaders of the Union. He that made that speech in Hearstfield. —No, I didn't, said Mr. Thornton, looking round sharply at his follower. Higgins was known to him by name as a turbulent spirit. —Come along, said he, and his tone was rougher than before. —It is men such as this, thought he, who interrupt commerce, and injure the very town they live in, mere demagogues, lovers of power, or whatever cost to others. —Well, sir, what do you want with me? —said Mr. Thornton, facing round at him, as soon as they were in the counting-house of the mill. —My name is Higgins. —I know that, broken Mr. Thornton. —What do you want, Mr. Higgins? —What's the question? —Oh, work. —Work? —You're a pretty chap to come asking me for work. —You don't want impudence, that's very clear. —I've got an enemies and backbite, as like my betas. —But a narrowed any of them, call me oh, a modest, said Higgins. —His blood was a little roused by Mr. Thornton's manner, more than by his words. —Mr. Thornton saw a letter addressed to himself on the table. He took it up and read it through. At the end he looked up and said, —What are you waiting for? —An answer to the question, I asked. —I gave it you before, don't waste any more of your time. —You made a remark, sir, on my impudence, but I would talk that it was manners to say either yes or no when I were asked a civil question. —I should be thankful to you if you'd give me work. —Hamper will speak to my being a good hand. —I've a notion you'd better not send me to hamper to ask for a character, my man, I might hear more than you'd like. —I'd take the risk. —Worse they could say of me is that I did what I thought best, even to my own wrong. —You'd better go and try them then, and see whether they'll give you work. —I've turned off upwards of a hundred of my best hands for no other fault than following you and such as you, and you think I'll take you on. —I might as well put a fire-brand into the midst of the cotton waste. —Higgins turned away. Then the recollection of Boucher came over him, and he faced round with the greatest concession he could persuade himself to make. —I promise you, master, I'd not speak a word as could do harm, if so be you did right by us, and I promise more. I promise that when I see you going wrong, and acting unfair, I'd speak to you in private first, and that'd be a fair warning. —If you and I didn't agree on our opinion of your conduct, you might turn me off at an hour's notice. —Upon my word, you don't think small beer of yourself. —Hamper has had a loss of you. —How came me to let you and your wisdom go? —Well, we parted with mutual dissatisfaction. I wouldn't give the pledge they were asking, and they wouldn't have me at no rate. So I'm free to make another engagement. And as I said before, though I shouldn't say it, I'm a good-hand master, and a steady man, especially when I can keep for a drink. And that I shall do now if I'm nerdy to four. But you may have more money laid up for another strike, I suppose. —No. I'd be thankful if I was free to do that. It's for to keep the widow and children of a man who was drove mad by them knob-sticks of yawn, put out of his place by a paddy that didn't know weft for a warp. —Well, you'd better turn to something else if you have any such good intention in your head. I shouldn't advise you to stay in Milton. You're too well known here. —If it were somewhere, said Higgins, I'd take to Paddy's work, go as a navio, hay-making or something, near Sea Milton again. But it's winter, the children are all clam, and pretty nappy you'd make. Why, you couldn't do half a day's work at digging against an Irishman. I'd only charge half a day for the twelve hours if I could only do half a day's work in the time. You're not known of any place, or they could give me a trial away for the mills if I'm such a fire-brand. I'd take any wage they thought I was worth for the sake of those children. —Don't you see what you would be? You'd be a knob-stick. You'd be taking less wages than the other labourers, all for the sake of another man's children. Think how you'd abuse any poor fellow who was willing to take what he could get to keep his own children. You and your union would soon be down upon him. —No. —No. If it's only for the recollection of the way in which you've used the poor knob-sticks before now, I say no to your question. I'll not give you work. —I won't say. I don't believe your pretext for coming and asking for work. I know nothing about it. —Maybe true. Or it may not. It's a very unlikely story, at any rate. —Let me pass. I'll not give you work. There's your answer. —Ah, he is, sir. I wouldn't have troubled you but that I were bid to come by one who seemed to think you'd get in some soft place in your art. —Oh, when mistook, and I were misled. But I'm not the first man as is misled by a woman. —Tell her to mind her own business the next time, instead of taking up your time and mine, too. I believe women are at the bottom of every plague in this world. Be off with you. —I'm obliged to you for your kindness, master. Most of all, for your civil way of saying good-bye. —Mr. Thornton did not dain a reply. But looking out of the window a minute after, he was struck with the lean, bent figure going out of the yard. The heavy walk was in strange contrast with the resolute, clear determination of the man to speak to him. He crossed to the porter's lodge. —How long was that man Higgins been waiting to speak to me? —He was outside the gate before I took loxer. —I think he's been there ever since. —And it's now just one, sir. —Five hours, thought Mr. Thornton. —It's a long time for a man to work doing nothing, but first hoping, and then fearing. End of CHAPTER XXXVIII. CHAPTER XXXIX. NORTH AND SOUTH. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Eila Jane, North Cumbria, United Kingdom. NORTH AND SOUTH. By Elizabeth Gaskell. CHAPTER XXXIX. Making Friends. —Nay, I have done. You get no more of me. And I am glad, yea, glad with all my heart, that thus so clearly I myself am free. —Draton. Margaret shut herself up in her own room after she had quitted Mrs. Thornton. She began to walk backwards and forwards in her old habitual way of showing agitation. But then, remembering that in that slightly built house every step was heard from one room to another, she sat down until she heard Mrs. Thornton go safely out of the house. She forced herself to recollect all the conversation that had passed between them. Speech by speech she compelled her memory to go through with it. At the end she rose up and said to herself in a melancholy tone, At any rate her words do not touch me. They fall off from me, for I am innocent of all the motives she attributes to me. But still it is hard to think that any one, any woman, can believe all this of another so easily. It is hard and sad. Where I have done wrong she does not accuse me. She does not know. He never told her. I might have known he would not. She lifted up her head as if she took pride in any delicacy of feeling which Mr. Thornton had shown. Then as a new thought came across her she pressed her hands tightly together. He too must take poor Frederick for some lover. She blushed as the word passed through her mind. I see it now. It is not merely that he knows of my falsehood, but he believes that someone else cares for me, and that I—oh dear, oh dear, what shall I do? What do I mean? Why do I care what he thinks, beyond the mere loss of his good opinion as regards my telling the truth or not? I cannot tell. But I am very miserable. Oh, how unhappy this last year has been! I have passed out of childhood into old age. I have had no youth, no womanhood. The hopes of womanhood have closed for me, for I shall never marry. And I anticipate cares and sorrows, just as if I were an old woman, and with the same fearful spirit. I am weary of this continual call upon me for strength. I could bear up for papa, because that is a natural pious duty, and I think I could bear up against, at any rate, I could have the energy to resent Mrs. Thornton's unjust impertinent suspicions, but it is hard to feel how completely he must misunderstand me. What has happened to make me so morbid today? I do not know. I only know I cannot help it. I must give way sometimes. No, I will not, though, said she, springing to her feet. I will not. I will not think of myself on my own position. I won't examine into my own feelings. It would be of no use now. Sometime if I live to be an old woman, I miss it over the fire, and looking into the embers, see the life that might have been. All this time she was hastily putting on her things to go out, only stopping from time to time to wipe her eyes, with an impatience of gesture at the tears that would come in spite of all her bravery. I dare say there's many a woman makes as sad a mistake as I have done, and only finds it out too late, and how proudly and impertently I spoke to him that day. But I did not know then. It has come upon me, little by little, and I don't know where it began. Now I won't give way. I shall find it difficult to behave in the same way to him, with this miserable consciousness upon me, but I will be very calm and very quiet and say very little. But to be sure I may not see him. He keeps out of our way evidently. That would be worse than all. And yet no wonder that he avoids me, believing what he must about me. She went out going rapidly towards the country, and trying to drown reflection by swiftness of motion. As she stood on the doorstep at her return, her father came up. Good girl, said he, you've been to Mrs. Boucher's. I was just meaning to go there, if I had time, before dinner. No, papa, I have not, said Margaret Redding. I never thought about her. But I will go directly after dinner. I will go while you are taking your nap. Accordingly Margaret went. Mrs. Boucher was very ill, really ill, not merely ailing. The kind and sensible neighbour who had come in the other day seemed to have taken charge of everything. Some of the children were gone to the neighbours. Mary Higgins had come for the three youngest at dinner-time, and since then Nicholas had gone for the doctor. He had not come as yet. Mrs. Boucher was dying, and there was nothing to do but to wait. Margaret thought that she should like to know his opinion, and that she could not do better than go and see the Higgins' in the meantime. She might then possibly hear whether Nicholas had been able to make his application to Mr. Thornton. She found Nicholas busily engaged in making a penny-spin on the dresser for the amusement of three little children who were clinging to him in a fearless manner. He as well as there was smiling at a good long spin, and Margaret thought that the happy look of interest in his occupation was a good sign. When the penny stopped spinning, Lyle Johnny began to cry. "'Come to me,' said Margaret, taking him off the dresser, and holding him in her arms. She held her watch to his ear while she asked Nicholas if he had seen Mr. Thornton. The look on his face changed instantly. "'Aye,' said he, "'I've seen and heard too much on him.' "'He refused you, then,' said Margaret sorrowfully. "'To be sure, I knew he'd do it all along. It's no good expecting mercy at the hands of their maesters. You're a stranger and a foreigner, and aren't likely to know their ways, but I knowed it. I am sorry I asked you. Was he angry? He did not speak to you as Hampadid, did he? "'He weren't over-civil,' said Nicholas, spinning the penny again as much for his own amusement as for that of the children. Never you fret. I'm only where I was. I'll go and tramp to Murrah. I gave him as good as I got. I told him I had not that good opinion on him that I'd had come a second time on my cell, but you had advised me for to come, and I were beholden to you. You told him I sent you.' "'I don't know if I called you by your name. I don't think I did. I said a woman who knew no better had advised me for to come and see if there was a soft place in his heart.' "'And he,' asked Margaret, said I were to tell you to mind your own business. That's the longest spin yet, my lads. And them civil words to what are used to me. But no mind were but what we was, and I'll break stones on the road afore I'll let these little ins clam.' Margaret put the struggling Johnny out of her arms back into his former place on the dresser. "'I am sorry I asked you to go to Mr. Thornton's. I am disappointed in him.' There was a slight noise behind her. Both she and Nicholas turned round at the same moment, and there stood Mr. Thornton with a look of displeased surprise upon his face. Obeying her swift impulse, Margaret passed out before him, saying not a word, only bowing low to hide the sudden paleness that she felt had come over her face. He bent equally low in return, and then closed the door after her. As she hurried to Mrs. Boucher's, she heard the clang, and it seemed to fill up the measure of her mortification. He too was annoyed to find her there. He had tenderness in his heart—a soft place, as Nicholas Higgins called it—but he had some pride in concealing it. He kept it very sacred and safe, and was jealous of every circumstance that tried to gain admission. But if he dreaded exposure of his tenderness, he was equally desirous that all men should recognize his justice, and he felt that he had been unjust in giving so scornful a hearing to any one who had waited, with humble patience, for five hours to speak to him. That the man had spoken sarsily to him when he had the opportunity was nothing to Mr. Thornton. He rather liked him for it, and he was conscious of his own irritability of temper at the time, which probably made them both quits. It was the five hours of waiting that struck Mr. Thornton. He had not five hours to spare himself, but one hour, two hours, of his hard-penetrating, intellectual as well as bodily labour, did he give up to going about collecting evidence as to the truth of Higgins's story, the nature of his character, the tenor of his life. He tried not to be, but was convinced that all that Higgins had said was true. And then the conviction went in as if by some spell, and touched the latent tenderness of his heart. The patience of the man, the simple generosity of the motive, for he had learned about the quarrel between Boucher and Higgins, made him forget entirely the mere reasonings of justice, and overleap them by a diviner instinct. He came to tell Higgins he would give him work, and he was more annoyed to find Margaret there, than by hearing her last words, for then he understood that she was the woman who had urged Higgins to come to him, and he dreaded the admission of any thought of her as a motive to what he was doing solely because it was right. So that was the lady you spoke of as a woman, said he indignantly to Higgins. You might have told me who she was. And then maybe you'd have spoken of her more civil than you did, you'd get in the mother who might have kept your tongue in check when you were talking of women being at the root of all the plagues. Of course you told that to Miss Hale. And of course I did, least ways I reckon I did, I tell that she went to meddle again in out that concerned you. Whose children are those yours? Mr. Thornton had a pretty good notion who's they were from what he had heard, but he felt awkward in turning the conversation round from this unpromising beginning. They're not mine, and they are mine. They are the children you spoke of to me this morning. When you said, replied Higgins, turning round with ill-smothered fierceness, that my story might be true or might not, but it were a very unlikely one, master I've not forgotten. Mr. Thornton was silent for a moment, then he said, No more have I. I remember what I said. I spoke to you about those children in a way I had no business to do. I did not believe you. I could not have taken care of another man's children myself if he had acted towards me as I hear Boucher did towards you. But I know now that you spoke truth. I beg your pardon. Higgins did not turn round or immediately respond to this. But when he did speak, it was in a softened tone, although the words were gruff enough. You have no business to go prying into what happened between Boucher and me. He's dead and I'm sorry. That's enough. So it is. Will you take work with me? That's what I came to ask. Higgins obstinacy wavered, recovered strength, and stood firm. He would not speak. Mr. Thornton would not ask again. Higgins' eye fell on the children. You've called me impudent and a liar and a mischief-maker, and you might have said with some truth as I were now and then given to drink, and I have called you a tyrant and an old bulldog and a hard-cruel master—that's where it stands—but for the children. Mr., do you think we can erget on together? Well, said Mr. Thornton, half- laughing, it was not my proposal that we should go together, but there's one comfort on your own showing, we neither risk and think much worse of the other than we do now. That's true," said Higgins reflectively. I've been thinking ever since I saw you what a mercy it were you didn't take me on, but that I now saw a man whom I could less abide. But that's maybe been a hasty judgment, and work's worked as such as me. So, maestro, I'll come, and what's more, I thank you, and that's a deal from me," said he, more frankly, suddenly turning round and facing Mr. Thornton fully for the first time. "'And this is a deal from me,' said Mr. Thornton, giving Higgins his hand a good grip. Now, mind you, come sharp to your time,' continued he, resuming the master. "'I'll have no laggards at my mill. What fines we have, we keep pretty sharply, and the first time I catch you making mischief off your go, so now you know where you are. You spoke of my wisdom this morning, I reckon I may bring it with me, or would you rather have me bout my brains? Bout your brains if you use them for meddling with my business, with your brains if you can keep to your own. I shall need a deal of brains to settle where my business ends and yours begins. Your business is not begun yet, and mine stands still for me. The Good Afternoon Just before Mr. Thornton came up to Mrs. Boucher's door, Margaret came out of it. She did not see him, and he followed her for several yards, admiring her light and easy walk, and her tall and graceful figure. But suddenly this simple emotion of pleasure was tainted, poisoned by jealousy. He wished to overtake her and speak to her, to see how she would receive him, now she must know he was aware of some other attachment. He wished to, but of this wish he was rather ashamed, that she should know that he had justified her wisdom in sending Higgins to him to ask for work, and had repented him of his morning's decision. He came up to her. She started. Allow me to say, Miss Hale, that you were rather premature in expressing your disappointment. I have taken Higgins on. I am glad of it, said she coldly. He tells me he repeated to you what I said this morning about. Mr. Thornton hesitated. Margaret took it up. About women not meddling. You had a perfect right to express your opinion, which was a very correct one, I have no doubt. But she went on a little more eagerly. Higgins did not quite tell you the exact truth. The word truth reminded her of her own untruth, and she stopped short, feeling exceedingly uncomfortable. Mr. Thornton at first was puzzled to account for her silence, and then he remembered the lie she had told, and all that was foregone. The exact truth, said he, for if you people do speak the exact truth, I have given up hoping for it. Miss Hale, have you no explanation to give me? You must perceive what I cannot but think." Margaret was silent. She was wondering whether an explanation of any kind would be consistent with her loyalty to Frederick. 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, said he, 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 am 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 do not 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 are 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 will 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, but 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. Haley 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 us a griable a turn to Margaret's ideas as it did to his own. Margaret tried to take an interest in what pleased her 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 without 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 forget 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 tenants' name upon the tappie, 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. CHAPTER XIV. OUT OF TUNE I have no wrong where I can claim no right. Not tain me fro where I have nothing had, yet of my woe I can not be so quiet. Namely since that another may be glad with that, that thus and sorrow makes me sad. Why it? Margaret had not expected much pleasure to herself from Mr. Bell's visit. She had only looked forward to it on her father's account. But when her godfather came, she had once fell into the most natural position of friendship in the world. He said she had no merit in being what she was, a girl so entirely after his own heart. It was a hereditary power which she had to walk in and take possession of his regard. While she, in reply, gave him much credit for being so fresh and young under his fellow's cap and gown. Fresh and young and warmth and kindness, I mean. I am afraid I must own that I think your opinions are the oldest and mostiest I have met with this long time. Dear this daughter of yours, Hale, her residence in Milton has quite corrupted her. She's a Democrat, a Red Republican, a member of the Peace Society, a Socialist. Papa, it's all because I'm standing up for the progress of commerce. Mr. Bell would have had it keep still at exchanging wild bee skins for acorns. No, no, I dig the ground and grow potatoes, and I'd shave the wild bee skins and make the wool into broad cloth. I can't exaggerate, Missy, but I'm tired of this bustle. Everybody rushing over everybody in their hurry to get rich. It is not everyone who can sit comfortably in a set of college rooms and that its riches grow without any exertion of his own. No doubt there is many a man here who would be thankful if his property could increase as yours has done without his taking any trouble about it, said Mr. Hale. I don't believe they would. It's the bustle and the struggle they like. Thanks for sitting still and learning from the past or shaping out the future by faithful work done in a prophetic spirit. Why, poo! I don't believe there's a man in Milton who knows how to sit still. And it is a great art. Milton people, I suspect, think Oxford men don't know how to move. It would be a very good thing if it mixed a little more. It might be good for the Miltoners. Many things might be good for them which would be very disagreeable for other people. Are you not a Milton and yourself, fast Margaret? I should have thought you would have been proud of your town. I confess, I don't see what there is to be proud of. If you'll only come to Oxford, Margaret, I will show you a place to glory in. Well, said Mr. Hale, Mr. Thornton is coming to drink tea with us tonight and he is as proud of Milton as you of Oxford. You two must try and make each other a little more liberal-minded. I don't want to be more liberal-minded, thank you, said Mr. Hale. Is Mr. Thornton coming to tea-papaw? asked Margaret in a low voice, either to tea or soon after. He could not tell. He told us not to wait. Mr. Thornton had determined that he would make no inquiry of his mother as to how far she had put her project into execution of speaking to Margaret about the impropriety of her conduct. He felt pretty sure that if this interview took place, his mother's account of what had passed at it would only annoy and sugar in him, though he would all the time be aware of the colouring which it received when passing through her mind. He shrank from hearing Margaret's very name mentioned. He, while he blamed her, while he was jealous of her, while he renounced her, he loved her sorely in spite of himself. He dreamt of her. He dreamt she came dancing towards him without spread arms and with a lightness and gaiety which made him loathe her even while it allured him. But the impression of this figure of Margaret, with all Margaret's character taken out of it, as completely as if some evil spirit had got possession of her form, was so deeply stamped upon his imagination that when he wakened he felt hardly able to separate the una from the duessa, and the dislike he had to the latter seemed to envelope and disfigure the former. Yet he was too proud to acknowledge this weakness by avoiding the sight of her. He would neither seek an opportunity of being in her company nor avoid it. To convince himself of his power of self-control, he lingered over every piece of business this afternoon. He forced every movement into unnatural, slowness and deliberation. And it was consequently past eight o'clock before he reached Mr. Hale's. Then there were business arrangements to be transacted in the study with Mr. Bell, and the latter kept on, sitting over the fire and talking wearily, long after all business was transacted and when they might just as well have gone upstairs. But Mr. Thorne would not say a word about moving their quarters. He chafed and chafed, and thought Mr. Bell the most prosy compranion, while Mr. Bell returned the compliment in secret by considering Mr. Thorne about as brisk and curt a fellow as he had ever met with, and terribly gone off both in intelligence and manner. At last some slight noise in the room above suggested the desirableness of moving there. They found Margaret, with a letter open before her, eagerly discussing its contents with her father. On the entrance of the gentleman it was immediately put aside, but Mr. Thorne's eager senses caught some few words of Mr. Hale's to Mr. Bell. A letter from Henry Lennox. It makes Margaret very hopeful. Mr. Bell nodded. Margaret was read as a rose when Mr. Thorne looked at her. He had the greatest mind in the world to get up and go out of the room that very instant, and never set foot at that house again. "'We were thinking,' said Mr. Hale, that you and Mr. Thorne had taken Margaret's advice and were each trying to convert the other. You were so long in the study. And you thought there would be nothing left of us but an opinion, like the Kilkenny's cat tale. Pray, whose opinion did you think would have the most obstinate vitality?' Mr. Thorne had not a notion what they were talking about, and disdain to inquire. Mr. Hale politely enlightened him. "'Mr. Thorne, we were accusing Mr. Bell this morning of a kind of oxonian medieval bigotry against his native town. And we, Margaret, I believe, suggested that it would do him good to associate a little with Milton manufacturers.' "'I beg your pardon. Margaret thought it would do the Milton manufacturers good to associate a little more with Oxford men. Now, wasn't it so, Margaret?' "'I believe I thought it would do both good to see a little more of the other. I did not know it was my idea more and more than Papa's. And so you see, Mr. Thorne, we ought to have been improving each other downstairs, instead of talking over vanished families of smiths and harrissons. However, I am willing to do my part now. "'I wonder when you Milton men intend to live. All your lives seem to be spent in gathering together the materials for life. By living, I suppose you mean enjoyment.' "'Yes, enjoyment. I don't specify of what, because I trust we should both consider mere pleasure as very poor enjoyment. I would rather have the nature of the enjoyment defined. Well, enjoyment of leisure, enjoyment of the power and influence which money gives. You are all striving for money. What do you want it for?' Mr. Thorne was silent. And he said, "'I really don't know, but money's not what I strive for.' "'What, then?' "'It is a home question. I shall have to lay myself open to such a catechist, and I am not sure that I am prepared to do it.' "'No,' said Mr. Hale. "'Don't let us be personal in our catechism. You are neither of you, representative men. You are each of you two individuals for that. I am not sure whether to consider that as a compliment or not. I should like to be the representative of Oxford with its beauty and its learning and its proud old history. What do you say, Margaret? ought I to be flattered?' "'I don't know, Oxford, but there is a difference between being the representative of a city and the representative man of its inhabitants.' "'Very true, Miss Margaret. Now I remember. You were against me this morning and were quite Miltonian and manufacturing in your preferences.' Margaret saw the quick glance of surprise that Mr. Thorne gave her, and she was annoyed at the construction which he might put on the speech of Mr. Bell's. Mr. Bell went on. "'Ah, I wish I could show you our high street, our Radcliffe Square. I am leaving out our colleges, just as I give Mr. Thorne to leave to omit his factories and speaking of the charms of Milton. I have a right to abuse my birthplace. Remember, I am a Milton man.' Mr. Thorne was annoyed more than he ought to have been at all that Mr. Bell was saying. He was not in a mood for joking. At another time he would have enjoyed Mr. Bell's half-tasty condemnation of a town where the life was so at variance with every habit he had formed. But now he was gallant enough to attempt to defend what was never meant to be seriously attacked. "'I don't set up Milton as a model of a town.' "'Not in architecture?' slightly asked Mr. Bell. "'No, we've been too busy to attend to mere outward appearances.' "'Don't say mere outward appearances,' said Mr. Hale gently. "'They impress us all, from childhood upward, every day of our life.' "'Wait a little while,' said Mr. Thorne. "'Remember, we are of a different race from the Greeks, to whom beauty was everything, and to whom Mr. Bell might speak of a life of leisure and serene enjoyment, much of which entered in through their outward senses. I don't mean to despise them any more than I would ape them. But I belong to two-tonic blood. It is little mingled in this part of England to what it is in others. We retain much of their language. We retain more of their spirit. We don't look upon life as a time for enjoyment, but as a time for action and exertion. Our glory and our beauty arise out of our inward strength, which makes us victorious over material resistance and over greater difficulty still. We are two-tonic up here in Darkshire in another way. We hate to have laws made for us at a distance. We wish people would allow us to ride ourselves instead of continually meddling with their imperfect legislation. We stand up for self-government and oppose centralization. In short, you would like to have Turkey back again. Well, at any rate, I revoke what I said this morning, that you Milton people did not reverence the past. You are regular worshipers of Thorne. If we do not reverence the past as you do in Oxford, it is because we want something which can supply to the present more directly. It is fine when the study of the past leads to a prophecy of the future, but to men groping in new circumstances, it would be finer if the words of experience could directly somehow to act and that concerns us more intimately and immediately, which is full of difficulties that must be encountered, and upon the mode in which they are met and conquered, not merely pushed aside for the time, depends on our future. Out of the wisdom of the past help us over the present. But no, people cannot speak of utopia much more easily than of the next day's duty. And yet when that duty is all done by others, who's so ready to cry five for shame? And all this time, I don't see what you're talking about. Would you, Milton men, condescend to send up your today's difficulty to Oxford? You have not tried us yet. Mr. Thorne laughed out right at this. I believe I was talking with reference to a good deal that has been troubling us up late. I was thinking of the strikes we have gone through which are troublesome and injurious things enough, as I am finding to my cost, and yet this last strike, under which I am smarting, has been respectable. A respectable strike, said Mr. Bell, that sounds as if you are far gone in the worship of Thorne. Margaret felt, rather than saw, that Mr. Thorne was chagrined by the repeated turning into jest of what he was feeling as very serious. She tried to change the conversation from a subject about which one party cared little, while to the other it was deeply, because personally, interesting. She forced herself to say something. Edith says she finds the printed calicoes in Corfu better and cheaper than in London. Does she, said her father? I think that must be one of Edith's exaggerations. Are you sure of it, Margaret? I am sure she says so, papa. Then I am sure of the fact, said Mr. Bell. Margaret, I go so far in my idea of your truthfulness that I shall cover your cousin's character. I don't believe a cousin of yours could exaggerate. Is Miss Hale so remarkable for truth? said Mr. Thorne bitterly. The moment he had done so, he could have bitten his tongue out. What was he? And why should he stab her with her shame in this way? How evil he was to-night, possessed by ill humor at being detained so long from her, irritated by the mention of some name because he thought it belonged to a more successful lover, now ill-tempered because he had been unable to cope with a light heart against one who was trying by gaying careless speeches to make the evening pass pleasantly away. The kind old friend to all parties, whose manner by this time might be well known to Mr. Thorne, who had been acquainted with him for many years. And then to speak to Margaret as he had done. She did not get up and leave the room, as she had done in former days when his abruptness or his temper had annoyed her. She sat, quite still, after the first momentary glance of grieve surprise that made her eyes look like some child who hadn't met with an unexpected rebuff. They slowly dilated into mournful, reproachful sadness, and then they fell. And she bent over her work and did not speak again. But he could not help looking at her, and he saw a sigh tremble over her body, as if she quivered in some unwanted chill. He felt as the mother would have done, in the midst of her rocking it and raiding it, had she been called away before her slow, confiding smile, implying perfect trust in a mother's love had proved the renewing of its love. He gave short, sharp answers. He was uneasy and cross, unable to discern between just and earnest, anxious only for a look, a word of hers, before which to prostrate himself in penitent humility. But she neither looked nor spoke. Her round taper fingers flew in and out of her sewing as steadily and swiftly as if it were the business of her life. She could not care for him, he thought. Or else the passionate fervor of his wish would have forced her to raise those eyes, if but for an instant, to read the late repentance in his. He could have struck her before he left, in order that by some strange overt act of rudeness he might earn the privilege of telling her the remorse that nod at his heart. It was well that the long walk in the open air wound up his seeming for him. It sobered him back into grave resolution, that henceforth he would see as little of her as possible. Since the very sight of that face and form, the very sounds of that voice, like the soft winds of pure melody, had such power to move him from his balance. Well, he had known what love was, a sharp pang, a fierce experience in the midst of whose flames he was struggling. But through that furnace he would fight his way out into the serenity of middle age, all the richer and more human for having known this great passion. When he had somewhat abruptly left the room, Margaret rose from her seat and began silently to hold up her work. The long seams were heavy and had an unusual weight for her languid arms. The round lines in her face took a lengthened, straighter form, and her whole appearance was that of one who had gone through a day of great fatigue. As the three prepared for bed, Mr. Bell muttered forth a little condemnation of Mr. Thornton. I never saw a fellow so spoiled by success. He can't bear a word, a just of any kind. Everything seems to touch on the soreness of his high dignity. Formerly he was as simple and noble as the open day. You could not offend him, because he had no vanity. He is not vain now, said Margaret, turning round from the table and speaking with quite distinctness. Tonight he has not been like himself. Something must have annoyed him before he came here. Mr. Bell gave her one of his sharp glances from above spectacles. She stood it quite calmly. But after she had left the room, he suddenly asked, Hale, did it ever strike you that Thornton and your daughter have what the French call a tantras for each other? Never, said Mr. Hale, first startled, then flurried by the new idea. No, I am sure you are wrong. I am almost certain you are mistaken. If there is anything, it is all on Mr. Thornton's side, poor fellow. I hope and trust he is not thinking of her, for I am sure she would not have him. Well, I am a bachelor and have steered clear of love affairs all my life, so perhaps my opinion is not worth having. Or else I should say there were very pretty symptoms about her. Then I am sure you are wrong, said Mr. Hale. He may care for her, though she has really been almost rude to him at times. But she? Why, Margaret would never think of him, I'm sure. Such a thing has never entered her head. Entering her heart would do. But I am really throughout a suggestion of what might be. I daresay I was wrong. And whether I was wrong or right, I am very sleepy. So, having disturbed your night's rest, as I can see, with my untimely fancies, I'll be take myself with an easy mind to my own. But Mr. Hale resolved that he would not be disturbed by any such nonsensical idea. So he lay awake, determining not to think about it. Mr. Bell took his leave the next day. Bidding Margaret look to him as one who had a right to help and protect her in all her troubles, of whatever nature they might be. To Mr. Hale, he said, that Margaret of yours has gone deep into my heart. Take care of her, for she is a very precious creature. A great deal too good for Milton. Only fit for Oxford, in fact. The town, I mean, not the men. I can't match her yet. When I can, I shall bring my young man to stand side by side with your young woman, just as the genie in the Arabian knights brought Prince Carl Mazan to match with the fairies Princess Fedora. I beg you'll do no such thing. Remember the misfortunes that ensued. And besides, I can't spare Margaret. No on second thoughts. We'll have her to nurse us ten years hence, when we shall be two cross-old invalids. Seriously, Hale. I wish you'd leave Milton, which is a most unsuitable place for you, though it was my recommendation in the first instance. If you would, I'd swallow my shadows of doubts and take a college living. And you and Margaret should come and live at the parsonage. You, to be a sort of lay curate, and take the unwashed off my hands, and she to be our housekeeper, the village lady bountiful, by day, and read us to sleep in the evenings. I could be very happy in such a life. What do you think of it? Never, said Mr. Hale, decidedly. My one great change has been made, and my price of suffering paid. Here I stay out my life, and here will I be buried, and lost in the crowd. I don't give up my plan yet, only I won't bait you with it any more just now. Where's the pearl? Come, Margaret, give me a farewell kiss. And remember, my dear, where you may find a true friend as far as his capability goes. You are my child, Margaret. Remember that, and God bless you. So they fell back into the monotony of the quiet life they would henceforth lead. There was no invalid to hope and fear about. Even the Higginses, so long a vivid interest, seemed to have receded from any need of immediate thought. The voucher children, left motherless orphans, claimed what if Margaret's care she could bestow. And she went pretty often to see Mary Higgins, who had charge of them. The two families were living in one house. The elder children were at humble schools, and the younger ones were tended in Mary's absence at her work, by the kind neighbor whose good sense had struck Margaret at the time of voucher's death. Of course she was paid for her trouble, and indeed, in all his little plans and arrangements for these orphan children, Nicholas showed a sober judgment, and regulated method of thinking, which were at variance with his former, more eccentric jerks of action. He was so steady at his work that Margaret did not often see him during these winter months. But when she did, she saw that he winced away from any reference to the father of those children, whom he had so fully and heartily taken under his care. He did not speak easily of Mr. Thornton. To tell the truth, said he, he fairly bamboozles me. He's two chaps. One chap, I know of old, as were master all or. Teller chap has an ounce of master's flesh about him. How them two chaps is bound up in one body is a craddy for me to find out. I'll not be beat by it, though. Meanwhile he comes here pretty often. That's how I know of the chap, that's a man, not a master. And I reckon he's taken aback by me pretty much as I am by him, for he sits and listens and stares, as if I were some strange beast newly caught in some of the zones. But I'm non-daunted. It would take a deal to daunt me in my own house, as he sees, and I'd tell him some of my mind that I reckon he'd have been the better of hearing when he were a younger man. And does he not answer you, asked Mr. Hale? Well, I'll not say the advantage's all on his side, for all I take credit for improving him above a bit. Sometimes he says a rough thing or two, which is not agreeable to look at at first, but has a queer smack of truth in it when you come to chew it. He'll be coming to-night, I reckon. About them children's schooling is not satisfied with the make of it, and wants to examine them. What are they? began Mr. Hale. But Margaret, touching his arm, showed him her watch. It is nearly seven, she said. The evenings are getting longer now. Come, papa. She did not breathe freely till there were some distance from the house. Then, as she became more calm, she wished that she had not been in so great a hurry. For somehow they saw Mr. Thornton very seldom now, and he might have come to see Higgins. And for the old friendship's sake, she would have liked to have seen him tonight. Yes, he came very seldom, even for the dull, cold purpose of lessons. Mr. Hale was disappointed in his pupil's lukewarmness about Greek literature, which had about a short time ago so great an interest for him. And now it often happened that a hurried note from Mr. Thornton would arrive, just at the last moment, saying that he was so much engaged that he could not come to read with Mr. Hale that evening. And though other pupils had more than taken his place as the time, no one was like his first scholar in Mr. Hale's heart. He was depressed and sad at this partial cessation of an intercourse which had become dear to him. And he used to sit pondering over the reason that he could have occasioned this change. He startled Margaret one evening as she sat at her work by suddenly asking, Margaret, had you ever any reason for thinking that Mr. Thornton cared for you? He almost blushed as he put this question, but Mr. Bell's scouted idea recurred to him, and the words were out of his mouth before he well knew what he was about. Margaret did not answer immediately. But by the bent drooping of her head, he guessed what her reply would be. Yes, I believe. Oh, Papa, I should have told you. And she dropped her work and hid her face in her hands. No, dear, don't think that I am being impertinently curious. I am sure you would have told me if you had felt that you could return his regard. Did he speak to you about it? No answer at first. But by and by, a little gentle reluctant. Yes. And you refused him. Alongside, a more helpless, nervous attitude. And another. Yes. But before her father could speak, Margaret lifted up her face, rosy with some beautiful shame, and fixing her eyes upon him said, Now, Papa, I have told you this. And I cannot tell you more. And then the whole thing is so painful to me. Every word and action connected with 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. But oh, I am very sorry. She sat down on the ground and laid her head on his knees. I, too, am sorry, my dear. Mr. Bell quite startled me when he said some idea 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, that you were not ungraciously disposed towards Mr. Thornton? I knew that could never be. I hoped the whole thing was but an imagination. But I knew too well what your real feelings were to suppose that you could ever like Mr. Thornton in that way. But I am very sorry. They were very quiet and still for some minutes. But on stroking her cheek in a caressing way soon after, he was almost shocked to find her face wet with tears. As he touched her, she sprang up and, smiling with forced brightness, began to talk of the Lennoxes with such a vehement desire to turn the conversation that Mr. Hill was too tender-hearted to try to force it back into the old channel. Tomorrow, yes, tomorrow they will be back in Harley Street. Oh, how strange it will be. I wonder what room they will make into the nursery. On shout will be happy with the baby. Fancy Edith and Mama, and Captain Lennox, I wonder what he will do with himself now he has sold out. I'll tell you what, said her father, anxious to indulge her in this fresh subject of interest. I think I must spare you for a fortnight just to run up to town and see the travelers. You could learn more by half an hour's conversation with Mr. Henry Lennox about Frederick's chances than in a dozen of these letters of his. So it would, in fact, be uniting business with 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 has no 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 it has burst like many another, and we must console ourselves with being glad that Frederick's so happy and with being a great deal to each other. So don't offend me by talking of being able to spare me, Papa, for I 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. She began to consider how desirable something of the kind would be to her father, whose spirits, always feeble, now became too frequently depressed, and whose health, though he never complained, had been seriously affected by his wife's illness and death. There were the regular hours of reading with his pupils, but that all giving and no receiving could no longer be called companionship, as in the old days when Mr. Thornton came to study under him. Margaret was conscious of the want under which he was suffering, unknown to himself, the want of a man's intercourse with men. At Halston there had been perpetual occasions for an interchange of visits with neighboring clergymen, and the poor laborers in the field, or leisurely tramping home at eve, or tending their cattle in the forest, were always at liberty to speak or to be spoken to. But in Milton everyone was too busy for quiet speech, or any ripened intercourse of thought. What they said was about business, very present and actual. And when the tension of mind relating to their daily affairs was over, they sunk into fallow rest until next morning. The workman was not to be found after the day's work was done. He had gone away to some lecture, or some club, or some beer shop, according to his degree of character. Mr. Hale thought of trying to deliver a course of lectures at some of the institutions. But he contemplating doing this so much as an effort of duty, and with so little of the genial impulse of love towards his work, and its end, that Marker was sure that it would not be well done until he could look upon it with some kind of zest. End of Chapter 40. Chapter 41 North and South This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Marianna London England North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell Chapter 41 The Journey's End I see my way as birds their trackless way. I shall arrive. What time, what circuit first, I ask not. But unless God sent his hail or blinding fireballs, sleet, or stifling snow, in some time, his good time, I shall arrive. He guides me unto the bird, in his good time. Browning's Paracelsus So the winter was getting on, and the days were beginning to lengthen, without bringing with them any of the brightness of hope which usually accompanies the rays of a February sun. Mrs. Thornton had of course entirely ceased to come to the house. Mr. Thornton came occasionally, but his visits were addressed to her father, and were confined to the study. Mr. Hale spoke of him as always the same. Indeed the very rarity of their intercourse seemed to make Mr. Hale set only the higher value on it. And from what Margaret could gather of what Mr. Thornton had said, there was nothing in the cessation of his visits which could arise from any umbrage or vexation. His business affairs had become complicated during the strike, and required closer attention than he had given them last winter. Nay Margaret could even discover that he spoke from time to time of her, and always as far as she could learn, in the same calm friendly way, never avoiding and never seeking any mention of her name. She was not in spirits to raise her father's tone of mind. The dreary peacefulness of the present time had been preceded by so long a period of anxiety and care, even intermixed with storms, that her mind had lost its elasticity. She tried to find herself occupation in teaching the two younger Boucher children, and worked hard at goodness. Hard I say most truly, for her heart seemed dead to the end of all her efforts, and though she made them punctually and painfully, yet she stood as far off as ever from any cheerfulness. Her life seemed still bleak and dreary. The only thing she did well was what she did out of unconscious piety, the silent comforting and consoling of her father. Not a mood of his but what found a ready sympathiser in Margaret, not a wish of his that she did not strive to forecast and to fulfil. They were quiet wishes, to be sure, and hardly named without hesitation and apology. All the more complete and beautiful was her meek spirit of obedience. March brought the news of Frederick's marriage. He and Dolores wrote, she in Spanish English as was but natural, and he with little turns and inversions of words, which proved how far the idioms of his bride's country were infecting him. On the receipt of Henry Lennox's letter, announcing how little hope there was of his ever clearing himself at a court-martial in the absence of the missing witnesses, Frederick had written to Margaret a pretty vehement letter, containing his renunciation of England as his country. He wished he could unnative himself, and declared that he would not take his pardon if it were offered him, nor live in the country if he had permission to do so. All of which made Margaret cry sorely, so unnatural did it seem to her at the first opening. But on consideration, she saw rather in such expression the poignancy of the disappointment which had thus crushed his hopes, and she felt that there was nothing for it but patience. In the next letter, Frederick spoke so joyfully of the future that he had no thought for the past, and Margaret found a use in herself for the patience she had been craving for him. She would have to be patient. But the pretty timid, girlish letters of Dolores were beginning to have a charm for both Margaret and her father. The young Spaniard was so evidently anxious to make a favorable impression upon her lover's English relations, that her feminine care peeped out at every erasure, and the letters announcing the marriage were accompanied by a splendid black-laced mantilla, chosen by Dolores herself for her unseen sister-in-law, whom Frederick had represented as a paragon of beauty, wisdom, and virtue. Frederick's worldly position was raised by this marriage onto as high a level as they could desire. Barbara and company was one of the most extensive Spanish houses, and into it he was received as a junior partner. Margaret smiled a little, and then sighed as she remembered her fresh, her old tirades against trade. Here was her Prussia-Valier-ver-Brother, turned merchant, trader, but then she rebelled against herself, and protested silently against the confusion implied between a Spanish merchant and a Milton-Millowner. Well, trade or no trade, Frederick was very, very happy. Dolores must be charming, and the mantilla was exquisite. And then she returned to the present life. Her father had occasionally experienced a difficulty in breathing this spring, which had for the time distressed him exceedingly. Margaret was less alarmed, as this difficulty went off completely in the intervals. But she was still so desirous of his shaking off the liability altogether, as to make her very urgent that he should accept Mr. Bell's invitation to visit him at Oxford this April. Mr. Bell's invitation included Margaret. Name more, he wrote a special letter commanding her to come. But she felt as if it would be a greater relief to her to remain quietly at home, entirely free from any responsibility whatever, and so to rest her mind and heart in a manner which she had not been able to do for more than two years past. When her father had driven off on his way to the railroad, Margaret felt how great and long had been the pressure on her time and her spirits. It was astonishing, almost stunning, to feel herself so much at liberty. No one depending on her for cheering care if not for positive happiness. No invalid to plan and think for. She might be idle and silent and forgetful. And what seemed worse more than all the other privileges, she might be unhappy if she liked. For months past all her own personal cares and troubles had had to be stuffed away into a dark cupboard. But now she had leisure to take them out and mourn over them and study their nature and seek the true method of subduing them into the elements of peace. All these weeks she had been conscious of their existence in a dull kind of way, though they were hidden out of sight. Now, once for all, she would consider them and appoint to each of them its right work in her life. So she sat almost motionless for hours in the drawing room, going over the bitterness of every remembrance with an unwincing resolution. Only once she cried aloud of the stinging thought of the faithlessness which gave birth to that abasing falsehood. She now would not even acknowledge the force of the temptation. Her plans for Frederick had all failed and the temptation lay there a dead mockery, a mockery which had never had life in it. The lie had been so despicably foolish, seen by the light of the ensuing events and faith in the power of truth so infinitely the greater wisdom. In her nervous agitation, she unconsciously opened a book of her fathers that lay upon the table. The words that caught her eye in it seemed almost made for her present state of acute self-abasement. Je ne voudrais pas reprendre mon coeur en cette sorte, meur de honte, aveugle, impudant, traître et déloyale attendieu, et semblable chose. Mais je voudrais le corriger par voie de compassion. Horsuse, mon pauvre coeur, nous voilà tombé dans la force laquelle nous avions tant résolu d'échapper. Ah, relevons-nous, et quittons-la pour jamais, reclamant la miséricorde de Dieu, et espérons en elle qu'elle nous assistera pour désormais être plus ferme, et remettons-nous aux chemins de l'humilité. Courage, soyez au méchouis sur nos gardes, Dieu nous aidera. And that translates as, I would not wish to rebuke my heart in this way. Die of shame, insolent creature as you are, treacherous and disloyal to your God, and similar things. But I would like to correct it by means of compassion, saying, come then, my poor heart, we have fallen into a pit which we had resolved to escape. Ah, let us rise up and leave it forever, calling on the mercy of God and hoping that it will help us in future to be more resolute. And let us find again the path of humility. Courage, let us henceforth be watchful with God's help. That's from the introduction to the devout life by St Francis de Salle, written in 1608. The way of humility, our thought, Margaret, that is what I have missed. But courage, little heart, we will turn back and by God's help we may find the lost path. So she rose up and determined at once to set to on some work which should take her out of herself. To begin with, she called in Martha as she passed the drawing-room door in going upstairs and tried to find out what was below the grave, respectful, servant-like manner which crossed it over her individual character with an obedience that was almost mechanical. She found it difficult to induce Martha to speak of any of her personal interests, but at last she touched the right cord in naming Mrs. Thornton. Martha's whole faith brightened and on a little encouragement out came a long story of how her father had been in early life connected with Mrs. Thornton's husband. Nay had even been in a position to show him some kindness. What Martha hardly knew, for it had happened when she was quite a little child and circumstances had intervened to separate the two families until Martha was nearly grown up, when her father having sunk lower and lower from his original occupation as Clarke in a warehouse and her mother being dead. She and her sister, to use Martha's own expression, would have been lost but for Mrs. Thornton, who sought them out and sought for them and cared for them. I'd had the fever and was but delicate, and Mrs. Thornton and Mr. Thornton too, they never rested till they had nursed me up in their own house and sent me to the sea and all. The doctors said the fever was catching, but they cared none for that, only Miss Fanny, and she went to visiting these folk that she's going to marry into. So though she was afraid at the time, it's all ended well. Miss Fanny going to be married, exclaimed Margaret. Yes, and to a rich gentleman too, only he's a deal older than she is. His name is Watson, and his mills are somewhere out beyond Haley. It's a very good marriage, for all he's got such gray hair. At this piece of information, Margaret was silent long enough for Martha to recover her propriety and with it her habitual shortness of answer. She swept up the hearth, asked at what time she should prepare tea, and quitted the room with the same wooden face with which she had entered it. Margaret had to pull herself up from indulging a bad trick, which she'd lately fallen into, of trying to imagine how every event that she heard of in relation to Mr. Thornton would affect him, whether he would like it or dislike it. The next day she had the little voucher children for their lessons and took a long walk and ended by a visit to Mary Higgins. Somewhat to Margaret's surprise, she found Nicholas already come home from his work. The lengthening light had deceived her as to the lateness of the evening. He too seemed by his manners to have entered a little more on the way of humility. He was quieter and less self-asserting. So the old gentleman's away on his travels, as he said he. Little ones tell me so. Eh, but they're sharpens they are. I almost think they beat my own wenches for sharpness, though a map and it's wrong to say so, and one of them in her grave. There's so much in the weather, I reckon, as sets folk are wandering. My master, him at the shop yonder, is spinning about the world somewhere. Is that the reason you're so soon at home tonight, asked Margaret innocently? Thou knowest not about it, that's all, said he contemptuously. I'm not one with two faces, one from a master and two for his back. I counted all the clocks in the town striking afore I'd leave my work. No, yon Thornton's good enough for to fight me, but too good for to be cheated. It were you as getting me the place, and I thank you for it. Thornton's isn't a bad mill, as times go. Stand down, lad, and say your pretty hymn to Miss Margaret. That's right. Steady on the legs and right arm out, as straight as a skewer. One to stop, two to stay, three MacReady and four away. The little fellow repeated a methodist hymn, far above his comprehension in point of language, but of which the swinging rhythm had caught his ear, and which he repeated with all the developed cadence of a member of parliament. When Margaret had duly applauded, Nicholas called for another, and yet another, much to her surprise, as she found him thus oddly and unconsciously led to take an interest in the sacred things which he had formerly scouted. It was past the usual tea-time when she reached home, but she had the comfort of feeling that no one had been kept waiting for her, and of thinking her own thoughts while she rested, instead of anxiously watching another person to learn whether to be grave or gay. After tea, she resolved to examine a large packet of letters, and pick out those that were to be destroyed. Among them, she came to four or five of Misty Henry Lennox's relating to Frederick's affairs, and she carefully read them over again with the sole intention, when she began, to ascertain exactly on how fine a chance the justification of her brother hung. But when she'd finished the last, and weighed the pros and cons, the little personal revelation of character contained in them, forced itself on her notice. It was evident enough from the stiffness of the wording that Mr. Lennox had never forgotten his relation to her in any interest he might feel in the subject of the correspondence. They were clever letters. Margaret saw that in a twinkling, but she missed out of them all hearty and genial atmosphere. They were to be preserved, however, as valuable, so she laid them carefully on one side. When this little piece of business was ended, she fell into a reverie, and the thought of her absent father ran strangely in Margaret's head this night. She almost blamed herself for having felt her solitude, and consequently his absence as a relief. But these two days had set her up afresh with new strengths and brighter hope. Plans which had lately appeared to her in the guise of tasks, now appeared like pleasures. The morbid scales had fallen from her eyes, and she saw her position and her work more truly. If only Mr. Thornton would restore her the lost friendship. Nay, if he would only come from time to time to cheer her father as in former days. Though she should never see him, she felt as if the course of her future life, though not brilliant in prospect, might lie clear and even before her. She sighed as she rose up to go to bed. In spite of the one steps enough for me, in spite of the one plain duty of devotion to her father, there lay at her heart an anxiety and a pang of sorrow. And Mr. Hale thought of Margaret that April evening just as strangely and as persistently as she was thinking of him. He had been fatigued by going about among his old friends and old familiar places. He'd had exaggerated ideas of the change which his altered opinions might make in his friend's reception of him. But although some of them might have felt shocked or grieved or indignant at his falling off in the abstract, as soon as they saw the face of the man whom they'd once loved, they forgot his opinions in himself, or only remembered them enough to give an additional tender gravity to their manner. For Mr. Hale had not been known to many. He had belonged to one of the smaller colleges and had always been shy and reserved. But those who in use had cared to penetrate to the delicacy of thought and feeling that lay below his silence and indecision took him to their hearts with something of the protecting kindness which they would have shown to a woman. And the renewal of this kindness after the laps of years and an interval of so much change overpowered him more than any roughness or expression of disapproval could have done. I'm afraid we've done too much, said Mr. Bell. You're suffering now from having lived so long in that Milton-Air. I am tired, said Mr. Hale. But it is not Milton-Air. I am fifty-five years of age, and that little fact of itself accounts for any loss of strength. Nonsense, I'm upwards of sixty and feel no loss of strength, either bodily or mental. Don't let me hear you talking so. Fifty-five? Why, you're quite a young man. Mr. Hale shook his head. These last few years, said he. But after a minute's pause, he raised himself from his half-recumbent position in one of Mr. Bell's luxurious easy-chairs and said with a kind of trembling earnestness, Bell, you're not to think that if I could have foreseen all that would come of my change of opinion and my resignation of my living. No, not even if I could have known how she would have suffered, but I would undo it, the act of open acknowledgement that I no longer held the same face as the church in which I was a priest. As I think now, even if I could have foreseen that cruelest martyrdom of suffering, through the sufferings of one whom I loved, I would have done just the same as far as that step of openly leaving the church went. I might have done differently and acted more wisely in all that I subsequently did for my family, but I don't think God endued me with over much wisdom or strength, he added, falling back into his old position. Mr. Bell blew his nose ostentatiously before answering. Then he said, he gave you strength to do what your conscience told you was right, and I don't see that we need any higher or holier strength than that, or wisdom either. I know I have not that much, and yet men set me down in their fool's books as a wise man, an independent character, strong-minded in all that can't. The various idiot who obeys his own simple law of right, if it be but in wiping his shoes on a doormat, is wiser and stronger than I. But what gullsmen are? There was a pause. Mr. Hale spoke first in continuation of his thought. About Margaret. Well, about Margaret, what then? If I die, nonsense, what will become of her, I often think. I suppose the Lennoxes will ask her to live with them. I try to think they will. Her aunt Shaw loved her well in her own quiet way. But she forgets to love the absent. A very common fault. What sort of people are the Lennoxes? He, handsome, fluent, and agreeable. Edus, a sweet little spoiled beauty. Margaret loves her with all her heart, and Edus was as much of her heart as she can spare. Now, Hale, you know that girl of yours has got pretty nearly all my heart. I told you that before. Of course, as your daughter, as my god-daughter, I took great interest in her before I saw her the last time. But this visit that I paid you to you at Milton made me her slave. I went to willing old victim following the car of the conqueror. For indeed she looks as grand and serene as one who has struggled and may be struggling, and yet has the victory secure in sight. Yes, in spite of all her present anxieties, that was the look on her face. And so all I have is at her service, if she needs it, and will be hers, whether she will or no, when I die. Moreover, I myself will be her proche valier, sixty and gouty though I be. Seriously, old friend, your daughter shall be my principal charge in life, and all the help that either my wit or my wisdom or my willing heart can give shall be hers. I don't choose her out as a subject for fretting. Something I know of old you must have to worry yourself about, or you wouldn't be happy. But you're going to outlive me by many a long year. You spare thin men are always tempting and always cheating death. It's the stout, florid fellows like me that always go off first. If Mr. Bell had had a prophetic eye, he might have seen the torch all but inverted, and the angel with the grave and composed face standing very nigh beckoning to his friend. That night Mr. Hale laid his head down on the pillow on which it nevermore should stir with life. The servant who entered his room in the morning received no answer to his speech, drew near the bed, and saw the calm, beautiful face lying white and cold under the ineffacable seal of death. The attitude was exquisitely easy. There had been no pain, no struggle. The action of the heart must have ceased as he lay down. Mr. Bell was stunned by the shock and only recovered when the time came for being angry at every suggestion of his man's. A coroner's inquest, pff, you don't think I poisoned him. Dr. Forbes says it's just the natural end of a heart complaint. Poor old Hale, you wore out that tender heart of yours before its time. Poor old friend, how he talked of his. What is, pack up a carpet bag for me in five minutes. Here I've been talking, pack it up, I say. I must go to Milton by the next train. The bag was packed, the cab ordered, the railway reached in 20 minutes from the moment of this decision. The London train whizzed by, drew back some yards, and in Mr. Bell was hurried by the impatient guard. He threw himself back in his seat to try with closed eyes to understand how one in life yesterday could be dead today. And shortly tears stole out between his grizzled eyelashes at the feeling of which he opened his keen eyes and looked as severely cheerful as his set determination could make him. He wasn't going to blubber before a set of strangers, not he. There was no set of strangers, only one sitting far from him on the same side. By and by Mr. Bell peered at him to discover what manner of man it was that might have been observing his emotion. And behind the great sheet of the outspread times he recognized Mr. Thornton. Why, Thornton, is that you, said he, removing hastily to a closer proximity? He shook Mr. Thornton vehemently by the hand, until the gripe ended in a sudden relaxation, for the hand was wanted to wipe away tears. He had a last-seed, Mr. Thornton, in his friend Hale's company. I'm going to Milton, bound on a melancholy errand. Going to break to Hale's daughter the news of his sudden death. Death, Mr. Hale, dead. I, I keep saying it to myself, Hale is dead, but it doesn't make it any the more real. Hale is dead for all that. He went to bed well, to all appearance last night, and was quite cold this morning when my servant went to call him. Where? I don't understand. At Oxford, he came to stay with me, hadn't been in Oxford this seventeen years, and this is the end of it. Not one word was spoken for above a quarter of an hour. Then Mr. Thornton said, and she, and stopped full short. Margaret, you mean? Yes, I'm going to tell her, poor fellow, how full his thoughts were of her all last night. Good God, last night only. And how immeasurably distant he is now. But I take Margaret as my child for his sake. I said last night I would take her for her own sake. Well, I take her for both. Mr. Thornton made one or two fruitless attempts to speak, before he would get out the words. What will become of her? I rather fancy there will be two people waiting for her, myself for one. I would take a live dragon into my house to live, if by hiring such a chaperone, and setting up an establishment of my own, I could make my old age happy with having Margaret for a daughter. But there are those Lennoxes. Who are they, asked Mr. Thornton, with trembling interest. Oh, smart London people, who very likely will think they have the best right to her. Captain Lennox married her cousin, the girl she was brought up with. Good enough, people, I dare say. And there's her aunt, Mrs. Shaw. There might be a way open, perhaps, by my offering to marry that worthy lady. But that would be quite a piece, I'll say. And then there's that brother. What brother? A brother of her aunts. No, no, a clever Lennox. The captain's a fool, you must understand. A young barrister, who will be setting his cap at Margaret. I know he's had her in his mind this five years or more. One of his chums told me as much. And he was only kept back by her want of fortune. Now that will be done away with. How, asked Mr. Thornton, too earnestly curious to be aware of the impertinence of his question, why she'll have my money at my death? And if this Henry Lennox is half good enough for her, and she likes him, well, I might find another way of getting a home through a marriage. I'm dreadfully afraid of being tempted at an unguarded moment by the aunt. Neither Mr. Bell nor Mr. Thornton was in a laughing humour. So the oddity of any of the speeches which the former made was unnoticed by them. Mr. Bell whistled, without emitting any sound beyond a long hissing breath, changed his seat without finding comfort or rest. While Mr. Thornton sat immovably still, his eyes fixed on one spot in the newspaper, which he had taken up in order to give himself leisure to think. Where have you been, asked Mr. Bell at length? To Avre, trying to detect the secret of the great rise in the price of cotton. Er, cotton and speculations and smoke, well cleansed and well cared for machinery, and unwashed and neglected hands. Poor old Hale. Poor old Hale. If you could have known the change which it was to him from Halston. Do you know the new forest at all? Yes, very shortly. Then you can fancy the difference between it and Milton. What part were you in? Were you ever at Halston? A little picturesque village, like some in the Odenwald. You know Halston? I have seen it. It was a great change to leave it and come to Milton. He took up his newspaper with a determined air, as if resolved to avoid further conversation. And Mr. Bell was feigned to resort to his former occupation of trying to find out how he could best break the news to Margaret. She was at an upstairs window. She saw him alight. She guessed the truth was an instinctive flash. She stood in the middle of the drawing-room, as if arrested in her first impulse to rush downstairs. And as if by the same restraining thought, she had been turned to stone. So white and immovable was she. Oh, don't tell me. I know it from your face. You would have sent. You would not have left him if he were alive. Oh, papa, papa!