He was gone in another moment, with a bow to the whole party.

"Gone!" cried Mrs Grey; "and I have not said a word to him about his engagement and Miss Bruce! How very odd he must think us, Sophia!"

"There will be plenty of time for all we have to say," observed Hester.

"He is so uneasy about his mother, I see, that he will not leave her yet awhile."

Margaret was sure she perceived in her sister's beautiful eye and lip the subtle expression of amus.e.m.e.nt that they bore when a gay thought was in her mind, or when her neighbours were setting off in speculation on a wrong scent.

"But half the grace of one's good wishes is in their being offered readily," said Mrs Grey, "as I was saying to Sophia, the other day, when we were considering whether Mr Grey should not write to Mr Enderby with our congratulations. _We_ should not like to appear backward on such an occasion, for many reasons. Well now, my dears; one thing more. You must come to tea with us this evening. It will be a mild evening, I have no doubt; and I have sent to Miss Young, to say that my sedan will bring her at six o'clock. We have quite set our hearts upon having you for a sociable evening."

"Thank you," said Hester: "we would come with great pleasure, but that we are engaged."

"Engaged, my dear! Margaret has just told us that you have no engagement."

"So Margaret thought: but we are engaged. A friend of Mr Hope's is coming to spend the evening, and I promised that we would be at home."

"Dear!" said Sophia; "and we had quite set our hearts upon your coming."

"Cannot you bring the gentleman with you, my dear? I am sure Mr Grey will be happy to see any friend of Mr Hope's."

"Thank you; but he is coming on business."

"Oh, well! But Margaret can be spared, surely. I suppose you must stay and make tea, my dear. It would not do, I know, for you to appear to neglect your husband's country patients--particularly in the present state of affairs. But Margaret can come, surely. Sydney shall step for her, a little before six."

"Oh, yes," said Sophia; "Margaret can come. The gentleman can have no business with her, I suppose."

Margaret was again puzzled with the fun that lurked in the eye and lip.

She had been pa.s.sive till now; but seeing Hester's determination that she should not go, she said very decidedly that she should much prefer coming some evening when her brother and sister need not be left behind.

"Mrs Grey is not very well pleased," observed Margaret, when their visitors were gone. "Could not you have been a little more explicit as to this gentleman, whoever he may be?"

"I thought it better not to say more," said Hester, now unable to help stealing a glance at her sister. "Our visitor is to be Mr Enderby. He is so uneasy about his mother, that my husband is to see her this afternoon; and Mr Enderby offers to come in the evening, to discuss her case." After a slight pause, Hester continued--"Sophia was very positive about its being impossible that our visitor could have any business with you--was not she?"

"Oh, Hester!" said Margaret, imploringly, with her eyes full of tears.

"Well, well," said Hester, remembering how cruel this speech might appear to her sister, "I ought not to speak to you from my own habitual disbelief of Mrs Rowland's news. I will go away, dear; only just saying, first, that I like Philip's looks very well. He does not seem happier than he ought to be, while his mother is so ill: nor does he act as if he felt he had neglected us, his old friends. As my husband says, we must hear his own story before we judge him."

When she left the room, Margaret could not have settled with herself whether there was most pain or pleasure in the prospect of this evening.

Five minutes before, she had believed that she should spend it at the Greys'--should hear the monotonous hiss of the urn, which seemed to take up its song, every time she went, where it had left off last--should see Mrs Grey's winks from behind it--should have the same sort of cake, cut by Sophia into pieces of exactly the same size--should hear Sydney told to be quiet, and the little girls to go to bed--should have to play Mrs Grey's favourite waltz, and sing Mr Grey's favourite song--and at last, to refuse a gla.s.s of sherry three times over, and come away, after hearing much wonder expressed that the evening was gone already. Now, instead of this, there was to be the fear and constraint of Philip's presence, so unlike what that had ever been before!--no longer gay, easy, and delightful, but all that was awkward. No one would be sure of what the others were feeling; or whether there was any sufficient reason for their mutual feelings being so changed. Who would find the conversation? What could be talked about which would not bring one or another into collision with Mrs Rowland or Miss Bruce? But yet, there would be his presence, and with it, bliss. There would be his very voice; and something of his thoughts could not but come out. She was better pleased than if his evening was to be spent anywhere else.

Dinner pa.s.sed, she did not know how, except that her brother thought Mrs Enderby not materially worse than when he saw her last. The tea-tray came and stood an hour--Mr Hope being evidently restless and on the watch. He said at last that it would be better to get tea over before Enderby came; and Margaret repeated in her own mind that it _was_ less awkward; and yet she was disappointed. The moment the table was cleared, _his_ knock was heard. He would not have tea: he had been making his mother's tea, and had had a cup with her. And now, what was Hope's judgment on her state of health?

The gentlemen had scarcely entered upon the subject when a note was brought in for Margaret. Everything made her nervous; but the purport of this note was merely to ask for a book which she had promised to lend Mrs Levitt. As she went up to her room for it, she was vexed that the interruption had occurred now; and was heartily angry with herself that she could command herself no better, and be no more like other people than she fancied she had been this day. "There is Hester," thought she, "looking nothing less than merry, and talking about whatever occurs, as if nothing had happened since we met him last; while I sit, feeling like a fool, with not a word to say, and no courage to say it if I had. I wonder whether I have always been as insignificant and dull as I have seen myself to be to-day. I do not believe I ever thought about the matter before: I wish I could forget it now." Notwithstanding her feeling of insignificance in the drawing-room, however, she was so impatient to be there again that her hands trembled with eagerness in doing up the parcel for Mrs Levitt.

When she re-entered the drawing-room, Philip was there alone--standing by the fire. Margaret's first impulse was to retreat; but her better judgment prevailed in time to intercept the act. Philip said:

"Mr and Mrs Hope have, at my desire, given me the opportunity of speaking to you alone. You must not refuse to hear what I have to say, because it is necessary to the vindication of my honour;--and it is also due to another person."

Of course, Margaret sat down. She seemed to intend to speak, and Philip waited to hear her; but no words came, so he went on.

"You have been told, I find, that I have been for some time engaged to a lady who is now at Rome--Miss Bruce. How such a notion originated, we need not inquire. The truth is, that I am but slightly acquainted with Miss Bruce, and that nothing has ever occurred which could warrant such a use of that lady's name. I heard nothing of this till to-day, and--"

"Is it possible?" breathed Margaret.

"I was shocked to hear of it from my poor mother; but infinitely more shocked--grieved to the very soul, to find that you, Margaret, believed it."

"How could we help it? It was your sister who told us."

"What does my sister know of me compared with you? I thought--I hoped-- but I see now that I was presumptuous--I thought that you knew me enough, and cared for me enough, to understand my mind, and trust my conduct through whatever you might hear of me from others. I have been deceived--I mean I have deceived myself, as to the relation in which we stand. I do not blame you, Margaret--that is, I will not if I can help it--for what you have given credit to about me; but I did not think you would have mortified me so deeply."

"You are partly wrong now; you are unjust at this moment," replied Margaret, looking up with some spirit. "I do not wish to speak of Mrs Rowland--but remember, your mother never doubted what your sister said; the information was given in such a way as left almost an impossibility of disbelief. There was nothing to set against the most positive a.s.surances--nothing from you--not a word to any of your old friends--"

"And there was I, working away on a new and good plan of life, living for you, and counting the weeks and days between me and the time when I might come and show you what your power over me had enabled me to do-- and you were all the while despising or forgetting me, allowing me no means of defending myself, yielding me up to dishonour with a mere shake of the head, as if I had been an acquaintance of two or three ball-nights. It is clear that you knew my mind no better than I now find I knew yours."

"What would you have had me do?" asked Margaret, with such voice as she had.

"I believe I had not thought of that," said Philip, half laughing. "I only felt that you ought to have trusted me--that you must have known that I loved neither Miss Bruce, nor any one but you; and that I could not be engaged to any one while I loved you.--Tell me at once, Margaret--did I not deserve this much from you?"

"You did," said Margaret, distinctly. "But there is another way of viewing the whole, which does not seem to have occurred to you. I have been to blame, perhaps; but if you had thought of the other possibility--"

"What other? Oh! do speak plainly."

"I must, at such a time as this. If I could not think you guilty, I might fancy myself to have been mistaken."

"And did you fancy so? Did you suppose I neither loved you, nor meant you to think that I did?"

"I did conclude myself mistaken."

"Oh, Margaret! I should say--if I dared--that such a thought--such humility, such generosity--could come of nothing but love."

Margaret made no reply. They understood one another too completely for words. Even in the first gush of joy, there was intense bitterness in the thought of what Margaret must have suffered; and Philip vowed, in the bottom of his soul, that his whole life should be devoted to make her forget it. He could have cursed his sister with equal energy.

There was no end to what had to be said. Philip was impatient to tell what he had been doing, and the reasons of the whole of his conduct.

Margaret's views had become his own, as to the desultoriness of the life he had hitherto led. He had applied himself diligently to the study of the law, intending to prove to himself and to her, that he was capable of toil, and of a steady aim at an object in life, before he asked her to decide what their relation to each other was henceforth to be.

"Surely," said he, "you might have discovered this much from my letters to my mother."

"And how were we to know what was in your letters to your mother?"

"Do you mean that you have not read or heard them all this time?"

"Not a word for these three months. We have scarcely seen her for many weeks past; and then she merely showed us what long letters you wrote her."

"And they were all written for you! She told me, the last time I was here, that she could keep nothing from you: and, relying upon her words, I have supposed this to be a medium of communication between us throughout. I could have no other, you know. When did my mother leave off reading my letters to you?"

"From the week you went away last. Mrs Rowland came in while we were in the midst of one; and the consequence was--"

"That you have been in the dark about me ever since. You saw that I did write?"