"Unknown--for the present, yes; shallow--I am not prepared to say; but mercenary? If she were mercenary, would she have let me off? Would she have broken the engagement herself, as she did ten minutes ago?"

"I wish you wouldn't keep repeating that 'ten minutes,'" said Aunt Katrina, irritably. "Who cares for ten minutes? I wish it were ten years." Then her mind reverted to Garda. "She has some plan," she said.

"I don't think she plans. And now that this trouble is off your mind, my dear aunt, will you excuse me if I leave you? I have still only just arrived, and I was up at dawn. Shall I send Celestine to you?"

"Celestine is busy; she is refolding some lace--Flemish church."

"Your Betty, then."

"My Betty has behaved in the most _traitorous_ way."

"When she was the one to tell you?"

"She should have told me long before."

"Why she, more than any of the rest of us?" asked Winthrop, rising.

"Because _she_ must have made a superhuman effort not to; because _she_ must have fairly kept herself in a strait-jacket to prevent it--in a strait-jacket night and day; for eight long months has Elizabeth Gwinnet done that!"

"Don't you think, then, that you ought to have some pity for her?"

suggested Winthrop.

He went out. And then Betty, who was sitting, dazed and dejected, on the edge of a chair outside the door, hurried in, handkerchief in hand, to make her peace with dearest Kate, her long limp black skirt (all Betty's skirts were long) trailing in an eager, humble way behind her.

Winthrop had said that he wished to go to his room. The way to it was not through the drawing-room; yet he found himself in the latter apartment.

Margaret sat there near one of the windows sewing, sewing with that even motion of hand, and absorbed gaze bent on the long seam, which he had told himself more than once that he detested. The heavy wooden shutter was slightly open, so that a beam of light entered and shone across her hair; the rest of the room was in shadow.

Winthrop came towards her; he had closed the door upon entering. She gave him her hand, and they exchanged a few words of formal greeting--inquiry and reply about his journey and kindred matters.

"Garda has broken her engagement to me; I presume you know it," he said.

"I knew she intended to do it."

"She tells me that you have tried to dissuade her?"

"Yes; I thought she did not, perhaps, fully know her own mind."

"We must give up the idea that she is a child," he said. "We have been mistaken, probably, about that all along."

Margaret sewed on without answering.

"You are very loyal to her; you don't let me see that you agree with me."

"I didn't suppose that you meant any disparagement, when you said it."

"She tells me that she doesn't care for me any more." He took a book from the table beside him, and looked absently at its t.i.tle. "We must allow that she has a great facility as regards change."

"She has a great honesty."

Winthrop sat down--until now he had been standing; he threw aside the book. "You certainly can't approve of it," he said,--"such a disposition?"

He did not pay much heed to what he was saying, he was absorbed in the problem before him; face to face with Margaret, he was asking himself, and with more inward tumult than ever, why she had been so willing to have him think of her, as, after what he had seen, he must think? During his two weeks of absence--the evening before on that long pier in the rain--he had felt a hot anger against her for the unconcern with which she was treating him. But now that he knew the real history of that last afternoon, now that he knew that it was Garda who had planned the meeting with Lucian, Garda, not Margaret, who had been on her way to that solitary house, the problem was more strangely haunting even than before. She had saved Garda from compromising herself in the eyes of the man to whom she was engaged--yes; but she had done it at the expense of compromising herself, Garda, meanwhile, remaining ignorant of the greatness of the sacrifice, since she did not know, as Margaret did, that he, Winthrop, was sitting there in the wood beyond the bend.

Certainly it was an immense thing for one woman to have done for another; you might say, indeed, that there was nothing greater that a woman could do.

Then came again the galling thought that Margaret had not found the task so difficult, simply because she was indifferent as to what his opinion of her might be; _she_ knew that she had not been in any sense of the word to blame--that was enough for her; what he knew, or thought he knew, troubled her little.

But no, that could not be. Margaret Harold was a proud woman--you could see that, quiet as she was, in every delicate line of her face; it was not natural, therefore, that she should willingly rest in the eyes of any one under such an imputation as that. Surely, now that Garda had, of her own accord, broken off her engagement, and confessed (only Garda never "confessed," she merely told) that her old liking for Lucian had risen again, surely _now_ Margaret would throw off the false character that rested upon her, would hasten to do so, would be glad to do so; there was no necessity to shield Garda further. She had made the girl promise not to tell him the real version of the events of that last afternoon; didn't this mean that, if the circ.u.mstances should ever change so that it was possible to give the real version, she wished to give it to him herself? The circ.u.mstances had changed; and now, wouldn't she take advantage of it? Wouldn't she be glad to explain, at last, the reasons that took her to Madam Giron's that day? Of course she supposed that still he did not know; it would not occur to her that Garda might break her promise.

But still her hand came and went above the white seam. And still she said nothing.

He waited a long time--as long as it was possible to sit there without speaking. Then he went back to his last remark--which she had not answered; annoyed by her silence, he went from bad to worse. "I shall be surprised if you approve of it;--you have such a regard for appearances."

She colored. "I am not very successful in preserving them then, even if I have a regard."

"Oh, you don't mind _me_," answered Winthrop, in a tone which in spite of himself was openly bitter.

She looked up, he could see that she was much moved. "We must do everything we can for Garda now," she said, rather incoherently, her eyes returning to her work.

"You have done altogether too much for her as it is; I don't think you need trouble yourself so constantly about Garda, you might think for a moment of your other friends."

He was absolutely pleading--he could scarcely believe it of himself. But he wanted so to have her set him right! He wanted her to do it of her own accord--show that she was glad to be able to do it at last. There was no longer any question of saving Garda; Garda had, in her own eyes at least, saved herself. He waited for his answer.

She had given him a frightened glance as he spoke, the expression of his face seemed to take her by surprise, and break down her self-possession.

She rose, murmuring something about being obliged to go.

"You are sure you have nothing to say to me, Margaret?" he asked, as she went towards the door.

"Say? What do you mean?"

"I am giving you a chance to explain, I long to have you explain. I find myself unable to believe--" He stopped. Then he began again. "I am sure there is some solution--If I have not always liked your course in other matters, at least I have never thought _this_ of you. You know what I witnessed that afternoon, as I sat there in the woods; one word will be enough--tell me what I must think of it--and of you." He was trying her to the utmost now.

A painful red flush had darkened her face, but, except for that, she did not flinch. "You must think what you please," she answered.

Then she escaped; she had opened the door, and now she went rapidly down the hall towards her own room.

He stood gazing. If he had not known she was innocent, he should have set down her tone to defiance; it was exactly the sort of low-voiced defiance which he had expected from her when he had supposed--what he _had_ supposed.

But his suppositions had been entirely false. Did she still wish him to believe that they were true!

It appeared so.

CHAPTER XXIV.