Margaret meantime was sitting alone in her chamber, enduring the long morning as she best might. Now plying her needle as if life depended on her industry, and now throwing up her employment in disgust, she listened for the one sound she needed to hear, till her soul was sick of every other. "I must live wholly within myself now," she thought, "as far as he is concerned. I can never speak of him, or allow Hester and Maria to speak of him to me; for they will blame him. Every one will blame him: Maria did yesterday. No one will do him justice. I cannot ask Mrs Grey, as I intended, anything of what she may have seen and heard about all this. I have had my joy to myself: I have carried about my solitary glory and bliss in his being mine; and now I must live alone upon my grief for him; for no one person in the world will pity and justify him but myself. He has done me no wrong that he could help.

His staying away to-day is to save me pain, as he thinks. I wish I had not said in my letter that he has been harsh to me. Perhaps he would have been here by this time if I had not said that. How afraid he was, that day in the spring when he urged me so to marry at once--(Oh! if I had, all this would have been saved! and yet I thought, and I still think, I was right.) But how afraid he was of our parting, lest evil should come between us! I promised him it should not, for my own part: but who could have thought that the mistrust would be on his side? He had a superst.i.tious feeling, he said, that something would happen--that we should be parted: and I would not hear of it. How presumptuous I was! How did I dare to make so light of what has come so dreadfully true?--Oh! why are we so made that we cannot see into one another's hearts? If we are made to depend on one another so absolutely as we are, so that we hold one another's peace to cherish or to crush, why is it such a blind dependence? Why are we left so helpless? Why, with so many powers as are given us, have we not that one other, worth all the rest, of mutual insight? If G.o.d would bestow this power for this one day, I would give up all else for it for ever after. Philip would trust me again then, and I should understand him; and I could rest afterwards, happen what might--though then nothing would happen but what was good.

But now, shut in, each into ourselves, with anger and sorrow all about us, from some mistake which a moment's insight might remove--it is the dreariest, the most tormenting state! What are all the locks, and bars, and fetters in the world to it? So near each other too! When one look, one tone, might perhaps lead to the clearing up of it all! There is no occasion to bear this, however. So near as we are, nothing should prevent our meeting--nothing shall prevent it."

She started up, and hastily put on her bonnet and gloves: but when her hand was on the lock of her door, her heart misgave her. "If it should fail!" she thought. "If he should neither look at me nor speak to me-- if he should leave me as he did yesterday! I should never get over the shame. I dare not store up such a wretched remembrance, to make me miserable as often as I think of it, for as long as I live. If he will not come after reading my letter, neither would he hear me if I went to him. Oh! he is very unjust! After all his feats of my being influenced against him, he might have distrusted himself. After making me promise to write, on the first doubt that any one might try to put into my mind, he might have remembered to do the same by me, instead of coming down in this way, not to explain, but to overwhelm me with his displeasure, without giving me a moment's time to justify myself. Edward seems strangely unkind too," she sighed, as she slowly untied her bonnet and put it away, as if to avoid tempting herself with the sight of it again.

"I never knew Edward unjust or unkind before; but I heard him ask Philip why he staid to hear me in the abbey yesterday; and though he has been with Philip this morning, he does not seem to have made the slightest attempt to bring us together. When such as Edward and Philip do so wrong, one does not know where to trust, or what to hope. There is nothing to trust, but G.o.d and the right. I will live for these, and no one shall henceforth hear me complain, or see me droop, or know anything of what lies deepest in my heart. This must be possible; it has been done. Many nuns in their convents have carried it through: and missionaries in heathen countries, and all the wisest who have been before their age; and some say--Maria would say--almost every person who has loved as I have: but I do not believe this: I do not believe that many--that any can have felt as I do now. It is not natural and right that any should live as I mean to do. We are made for confidence, not for such solitude and concealment. But it may be done when circ.u.mstances press as they do upon me; and, if G.o.d gives me strength, I will do it. I will live for Him and his; and my heart, let it suffer as it may, shall never complain to human ear. It shall be as silent as the grave."

The resolution held for some hours. Margaret was quiet and composed through dinner, though her expectation, instead of dying out, grew more intense with every hour. After dinner, Hope urged his wife to walk with him. It had been a fine day, and she had not been out. There was still another hour before dark. Would not Margaret go too? No; Margaret could not leave home.

When Hester came down, equipped for her walk, she sat beside her sister on the sofa for a minute or two, while waiting for Edward.

"Margaret," said she, "will you let me say one word to you?"

"Anything, Hester, if you will not be hard upon any one whom you cannot fully understand."

"I would not for the world be hard, love. But there was once a time, above a year ago, when you warned me, kindly warned me, though I did not receive it kindly, against pride as a support. You said it could not support me; and you said truly. May I say the same to you now?"

"Thank you. It is kind of you. I will consider; but I do not think that I have any pride in me to-day. I feel humbled enough."

"It is not for you to feel humbled, love. Reverence yourself; for you may. Nothing has happened to impair your self-respect. Admit freely to your own mind, and to us, that you have been cruelly injured, and that you suffer as you must and ought. Admit this freely, and then rely on yourself and us."

Margaret shook her head. She did not say it, but she felt that she could not rely on Edward, while he seemed to stand between her and Philip. He came in at the moment, and she averted her eyes from him.

He felt her displeasure in his heart's core.

When they returned, sooner than she had expected, from their walk, they had bad news for her, which they had agreed it was most merciful not to delay. They had seen Enderby in Mr Rowland's gig on the Blickley road.

He had his carpet-bag with him; and Mr Rowland's man was undoubtedly driving him to Blickley, to meet the night coach for London.

"It is better to save you all further useless expectation," observed Edward. "We keep nothing from you."

"You keep nothing from me!" said Margaret, now fixing her eyes upon him.

"Then what is your reason for not having brought us together, if indeed you have not kept us apart? Do you suppose I did not hear you send him from me yesterday? And how do I know that you have not kept him away to-day?"

"My dear Margaret!" exclaimed Hester: but a look from her husband, and the recollection of Margaret's misery, silenced her. For the first time Hester forgave on the instant the act of blaming her husband.

"Whatever I have done, whether it appears clear to you or not," replied Hope, "it is from the most tender respect for your feelings. I shall always respect them most tenderly; and not the less for their being hurt with me."

"I have no doubt of your meaning all that is kind, Edward: but surely when two people misunderstand each other, it is best that they should meet. If you have acted from a regard to what you consider my dignity, I could wish that you had left the charge of it to myself."

"You are right: quite right."

"Then why--. Oh! Edward, if you repent what you have done, it may not yet be too late!"

"I do not repent. I have done you no wrong to-day, Margaret. I grieve for you, but I could not have helped you."

"Let us never speak on this subject again," said Margaret, stung by the consciousness of having so soon broken the resolution of the morning, that her suffering heart should be as silent as the grave. "It is not from pride, Hester, that I say so; but let us never again speak of all this."

"Let us know but one thing, Margaret," said Edward;--"that yours is the generous silence of forgiveness. I do not mean with regard to him--for I fear you will forgive him sooner than we can do. I do not mean him particularly, nor those who have poisoned his ear; but all. Only tell us that your silence is the oblivion of mercy, so mourning for the erring that, for its own sake, it remembers their transgressions no more."

Margaret looked up at them both. Though her eyes swam in tears, there was a smile upon her lips as she held out her hand to her brother, and yielded herself to Hester's kiss.

CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN.

THE CONQUEROR.

Mrs Rowland did not find herself much the happier for being borne out by the whole world in her a.s.sertions, that Philip and Margaret were not engaged. She knew that, with regard to this, she now stood justified in the eyes of all Deerbrook, that almost everyone there now believed that it had been an entanglement from which she had released her brother.

From selfish fear, from dread of the consequences of going so far as to be again sent by her husband to Cheltenham, or by the Levitts to Coventry; from foresight of the results which would ensue from her provoking an inquiry into the domestic concerns of the Hopes--an inquiry which might end in the reconciliation of Philip and Margaret, and in some unpleasant discoveries about herself--she was very guarded respecting the grand accusation by which she had wrought on her brother.

No hint of it got abroad in Deerbrook: nothing was added to the ancient gossip about the Hopes not being very happy together. Mrs Rowland knew that affairs stood in this satisfactory state. She knew that Margaret was exposed to as much observation and inquiry as a country village affords, respecting her disappointed attachment--that the Greys were very angry, and praised Margaret to every person they met--that Mr Walcot eulogised Mrs Rowland's discernment to all Mrs Rowland's party--that Mrs Howell and Miss Miskin lifted up their eyes in thankfulness at Mr Enderby's escape from such a connection--that Mr Hope was reported to be rather flat in spirits--and that Margaret was certainly looking thin: she knew of all this success, and yet she was not happier than six months ago. The drawback on such successes is, that they are never complete. There is always some Mordecai sitting at the gate to mar the enjoyment. Mrs Rowland was aware of Mrs James having dropped that she and her husband had nothing to do with anybody's family quarrels; that there was always a great deal to be said on both sides in such cases; and that they had never seen anything but what was amiable and pleasant in Miss Ibbotson and her connections. She knew that Dr Levitt called on the Hopes full as often as at any house in Deerbrook; and that Mrs Levitt had offered to take some of Margaret's plants into her greenhouse, to be nursed through the winter. She was always hearing that Miss Young and Margaret were much together, and that they were happy in each other's society; and she alternately fancied them talking about her, exposing to each other the injuries she had wrought to both, and enjoying an oblivion of their cares in her despite.

She could never see Maria taking an airing in the Greys' shrubbery, leaning on Margaret's arm, or Margaret turning in at the farrier's gate, without feeling her colour rise. She knew that Mr Jones was apt to accommodate Miss Ibbotson with a choice of meat, in preference to his other customers; and that Mrs Jones had spoken indignantly to a neighbour about fine gentlemen from London that think little of breaking one young heart after another, to please their own vanity, and never come back to look upon the eyes that they have made dim, and the cheeks that grow pale for them.

All these things Mrs Rowland knew; and they ate into her heart. In these days of her triumph she moved about in fear; and no hour pa.s.sed without troubling her victory. She felt that she could not rest till the corner-house family was got rid of. They did not seem disposed to move of their own accord. She incessantly expressed her scorn of the want of spirit of a professional man who would live on in a place where he had lost his practice, and where a rival was daily rising upon his ruins: but the Hopes staid on still. Week after week they were to be met in the lanes and meadows--now gleaning in the wake of the harvest-wain, with f.a.n.n.y and Mary, for the benefit of widow Rye; now blackberry gathering in the fields; now nutting in the hedgerows. The quarterly term came round, and no notice that he might look out for another tenant reached Mr Rowland. If they would not go of their own accord, they must be dislodged; for she felt, though she did not fully admit the truth to herself; that she could not much longer endure their presence. She looked out for an opportunity of opening the subject advantageously with Mr Rowland.

The wine and walnuts were on the table, and the gentleman and lady were amusing themselves with letting Anna and Ned try to crack walnuts (the three elder children being by this time at school at Blickley), when Mrs Rowland began her attack.

"My dear," said she, "is the corner-house in perfectly good repair at present?"

"I believe so. It was thoroughly set to rights when Mr Hope went into it, and again after the riot; and I have heard no complaint since."

"Ah! after the riot; that is what I wanted to know. The surgery is well fitted up, is it?"

"No doubt. The magistrates took care that everything should be done handsomely. Mr Hope was fully satisfied."

"He was: then there seems no doubt that Mr Walcot had better remove to the corner-house when the Hopes go away. It is made to be a surgeon's residence: and I own I do not like to see those blinds of Mr Walcot's, with that staring word 'Surgery,' upon them, in the windows of my poor mother's breakfast-room."

"Nor I: but the Hopes are not going to remove."

"I believe they will be leaving Deerbrook before long."

"I believe not."

"My dear Mr Rowland, I have reason for what I say."

"So have I. Take care of that little thumb of yours, my darling, or you will be cracking it instead of the walnut."

"What is your reason for thinking that the Hopes will not leave Deerbrook, Mr Rowland?"

"Mr Hope told me so himself."

"Ah! that is nothing. You will be about the last person he will inform of his plans. Mr Walcot's nearest friends will be the last to know, of course."

"Pray, do not make me out one of Mr Walcot's nearest friends, my dear.

I have a very slight acquaintance with the young gentleman, and do not intend to have more."

"You say so now to annoy me, my love: but you may change your mind. If you should see Mr Walcot your son-in-law at some future day, you will not go on to call him a slight acquaintance, I suppose?"

"My son-in-law! Have you been asking him to marry Matilda?"

"I wait, Mr Rowland, till he asks it himself; which I foresee he will do as soon as our dear girl is old enough to warrant his introducing the subject. Her accomplishments are not lost upon him. He has the prophetic eye which sees what a wonderful creature she must become. And if we are permitted to witness such an attachment as theirs will be, and our dear girl settled beside us here, we shall have nothing left to wish."