The house seemed full of an unforgiven pain; the sense of it oppressed Meg, and she wandered out into the amity of the woodland roads. As she walked down a narrow path she became aware of a man approaching toward her from the opposite direction, with a long stride and an absorbed mien. She recognized the editor.

The indignation that had been thrust back by the thought of that unknown sorrow blazed forth anew. It flamed on her cheek and burned in her eyes.

As the editor came near he met her glance and removed his hat; but Meg, taking no notice of his salute, pa.s.sed on, like a little G.o.ddess clothed in the panoply of her wrath.

As she returned home by another way she was surprised, and a little offended, to see the editor loitering near the gates of the park. She was preparing to cut him once more, when he advanced resolutely toward her.

"May I say a few words to you, Miss Beecham, with reference to the article that appeared in this morning's _Mercury_?"

"I would prefer not," replied Meg curtly.

"I feel an explanation is due. I would like to justify myself," he said, keeping pace with her as she walked on with her face turned from him.

"I would rather not approach the subject. No explanation is possible,"

replied Meg coldly.

"I think you are mistaken in saying that. Will you give me the opportunity I ask?"

"I prefer not," repeated Meg, stopping short and now turning round full upon him. "We approach this subject from such totally different standpoints, I feel very seriously about it. You gave your promise lightly, and as lightly broke it. I asked it after much hesitation and reluctance. To address a stranger, to call upon him as I did upon you, was a strong measure to take--a reckless one, some might say. I knew it, I felt it. I put myself into a false position--I exposed myself to the insult of being regarded as one to whom a promise means no bond."

"Not so. That is unjust. Allow me to say you are harsh beyond my deserts," replied the editor, unconsciously raising his voice. Checking himself he resumed more gently: "You will admit that the case of the poacher was entirely different. It was so strong, so startling."

"It was not so much against the matter as against the manner of your attack upon Sir Malcolm Loftdale that I appealed, and that you promised to alter," said Meg, unsoftened.

"I was strongly moved as I wrote," said the editor, who, somewhat to his surprise, found himself pleading before this young girl with eager self-justification. "The severity of the sentence pa.s.sed upon the unhappy man--I know him and his poor wife--seemed to me so out of all proportion to the offense committed that I forgot everything else. It was only when I looked over the article in print that I realized how the tone of it might hurt you."

"How it might hurt him! It did hurt him! If it is a satisfaction to you to know it, the blow struck home. That allusion to the modern Brutus had its full effect. It went to his heart!" said Meg pa.s.sionately, with flaming eyes.

"I will not pretend to say, Miss Beecham, except for the apparent neglect of my promise to you, that I would regret the effect of my words upon Sir Malcolm. By his coldness and harshness he drove his son to a piteous death."

"I know nothing of the story to which you allude; and I do not wish to know it. I will not hear it from the lips of an enemy of Sir Malcolm Loftdale," said Meg almost fiercely. "What I do know is, that if it is remorse or sorrow that darkens his old age, it is altogether too sacred a theme to be dragged into print and made the subject of a newspaper attack."

The editor was silent a moment, then he said: "You are right."

The gravity of his tone softened Meg; she hesitated a moment, then inclining her head she moved away.

"I wish you would retract what you said just now concerning your visit to my office," the editor began somewhat blunderingly--"that it was a reckless step--that you consider that it justified me in lightly promising and lightly breaking my pledge."

"You must acknowledge, then, that you forgot all that I said," replied Meg with the childlike bluntness which characterized her.

"Forgive me, and I will never forget again," he replied. "Will you not let me discuss the case of the poacher with you--of the other wrongs that exist--will you help me to advocate the rights of the tenants and laborers without wounding the landlord?"

"I will never discuss with you again," said Meg hastily; and with a quick bow she left him and pa.s.sed within the gates.

As she went up the avenue she caught sight of Sir Malcolm wandering up and down the yew-tree walk. He saw her and came forward to meet her. The emotion of the morning still left its traces upon his features. He held a letter.

"I have heard from my late secretary," he said. "He writes from London.

He will be back in a few days."

"Then, sir, I suppose I must resign my post," said Meg in a pained voice. "I have been happy in serving you."

"You seem to think that all the use you are to me is to serve me, read to me, work for me. Can you conceive yourself of no other use?" said Sir Malcolm in gentler tones than she had ever heard him speak.

"Of what other use can I be, sir, to you?"

"The use of bringing pleasure to me by your simple presence in my house," he said, taking her hand.

"I would be unhappy if I felt myself an idle dependant upon you, sir,"

Meg said, shy pride giving a touch of awkwardness to her att.i.tude and an embarra.s.sed tone to her voice.

"Were you fond of your task?" he asked.

"I liked it, sir," she replied.

"Then I will write to Mr. Robinson that he may stay where he is. Do not think that I shall be inconsiderate," he went on as she looked up anxiously. "I know that his wish is to find a situation in London. I can get him just the post he desires. Have an easy conscience about him. If you will, indeed, stay to be an old man's eyesight and his right hand, I will be grateful to you. I should be lonely now without you. Will you stay with me, Meg?"

"I will stay with you, sir, till you send me away," said Meg with zeal; and to her surprise she found herself in tears, moved to the heart at the old man's tone of unexpected tenderness.

CHAPTER XXIV.

FRIEND!

From that day a subdued tone of affectionate confidence entered into the relations between Meg and her guardian. Sir Malcolm did not emerge from the seclusion in which he lived so much as from his cold and distant manner. He still took his meals alone, he spent his evenings in solitude, he still wandered alone in the park; but his taciturnity was less marked. He often joined Meg in the grounds, and sometimes they drove out together into the surrounding country.

While continuing to treat her with that dignified courtesy that had a charm for Meg, he a.s.sumed toward her a gentle familiarity which kept up a reminder of that unexpected tenderness which had so profoundly moved her on the day when he asked her to stay with him. It was the only time she had seen him relax his stateliness of manner. Meg never knew him to depart from a lofty composure of demeanor. He never gave way to irritability; but if a servant was neglectful of orders, memorable severity visited this breach of duty. Toward her Sir Malcolm a.s.sumed a splendid deference. The flowers he plucked for her he presented with a suggestion of the superb homage a regent might give to a child-queen. As he walked and talked with her his conversation showed an appreciation of rustic beauty, and gave evidence of intellectual culture. He told her the names of the trees; he related anecdotes of country life and manners, of ill.u.s.trious statesmen and persons of note whom he had known; he sometimes flavored his conversation with quotations from the works of cla.s.sic authors. Sir Malcolm acknowledged, with that fine air which was not one of boasting, still less one of apology, that he knew nothing of contemporary literature outside that of the newspapers--his literary studies terminated with that of the wits of Queen Anne's reign. He spoke with an easy choice of words that gave a balanced elevation to his language. This gentler mood dispelled the fear Meg had felt in his presence, and the fascination grew that he exercised over her. The n.o.bility, the dignity, the sternness of the old man's appearance--the recognition that he was always at his best with her, who was a dependant, added to the spell he exercised over her. The gentle and subtle artificiality--perhaps it were better to say the art--of his manners influenced those of Meg, and they acquired by contact with him an added grace of reserve and composure.

The attacks in the _Mercury_ had ceased. Meg attributed Sir Malcolm's brighter mood to their cessation. Week after week elapsed, and the local print, while advocating as forcibly as before the right of the laboring cla.s.ses to happier conditions brought into their lives, abstained from all personal or covert allusions to Sir Malcolm Loftdale. Meg felt grateful. The editor had done this for her, and the desire grew upon her to thank him.

One afternoon, as she walked about the grounds, she began timidly to draw the baronet's attention to the softened tone of the _Greywolds Mercury_.

Sir Malcolm reared his head, and turning upon her a countenance the features of which seemed to stand out with added definiteness, he said with haughty distinctness: "I have noticed nothing. What an insolent radical thinks fit to say or not to say, matters nothing to me. I utterly ignore it. I regard it as I would regard the advocacy of ruffianism by a member of the criminal cla.s.ses."

"The attacks pained me," began Meg with regretful hesitation, struggling to master her timidity.

"I know it," replied Sir Malcolm; "and I thank you for your kind heartedness. It was unnecessary pain that you felt. Believe me, the whole affair was unworthy of your consideration. Disdain is the only att.i.tude to a.s.sume toward such conduct. No means are too contemptible for a low-born demagogue to adopt for the attainment of his aims."

"But, do you not admit, sir," said Meg with a slight tremor in her deep tones, "that liberalism, if mistaken, yet has its principles?"

"Principles!" repeated Sir Malcolm with scornful clearness. "The burglar, doubtless, has his principles when he picks my lock, and is silent lest he might awake the house. Never mention this man or his paper again."

He left her; and Meg, with a shadow over her face, walked slowly away.

She thought there was a certain injustice in not recognizing the altered tone of the newspaper, and the wish came to her more strongly to thank the editor for the deference he had paid to her request.

The next day she was driving out with Sir Malcolm. The way home lay through the straggling market-town, down the High Street, in which stood the office of the _Mercury_. The baronet seldom spoke during a drive, he sat back with that cold and distant air which seemed to withdraw him from his surroundings. The scene impressed itself and made a picture in Meg's mental vision: the red-tiled roofs of the irregular houses coming out against the lemon sky; the office on the southern side of the thoroughfare, the ugly posters glaring in the late sunlight. As they pa.s.sed the office Meg glanced in its direction; her eyes met those of a man emerging from the doorway. It was the editor. A chill force, that seemed to emanate from the white-haired immobile presence by her side, compelled her to withdraw her eyes and turn them coldly away. It was but for a flash, then Meg looked round to bow and smile her thanks; but the editor had already turned away and was walking with swift, long strides up the street.

Self-upbraidings kept Meg silent during the drive home. The opportunity that she had wished for, of showing to this stranger that she thanked him for his generous fulfillment of the promise he had given to her, had presented itself, and she had used the opportunity to wound him. She sat still and unhappy. In the loneliness of the evening, the pain of having offered what might well be interpreted as an affront by one who had been kind made her restless. A feverish longing came to her to remove the hurt she had given. She thought she would write to this stranger who seemed a friend; but when she endeavored to do so she found the task too difficult. His very name was unknown to her. Allusion to the apparent rudeness of her conduct seemed but to emphasize the incivility she had offered and make explanation inadequate. She put down her pen, and set about thinking once more. She would call upon him and explain! The resolve brought a sense of flurry; but the more she thought over it the more she grew reconciled to it. She owed it to him. She had been to him in anger and to expostulate; she would go to him now in reconciliation and to thank.