"Ay; I keep saying it to myself, "Hale is dead!" but it doesn"t make it anythe more real. Hale is dead for all that. He went to bed well, to allappearance, last night, and was quite cold this morning when myservant went to call him."
"Where? I don"t understand!"
"At Oxford. He came to stay with me; hadn"t been in Oxford thisseventeen 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 am going to tell her. Poor fellow! how fullhis thoughts were of her all last night! Good God! Last night only. Andhow immeasurably distant he is now! But I take Margaret as my childfor his sake. I said last night I would take her for her own sake. Well, Itake her for both."
Mr. Thornton made one or two fruitless attempts to speak, before hecould get out the words:
"What will become of her!"
"I rather fancy there will be two people waiting for her: myself for one. Iwould take a live dragon into my house to live, if, by hiring such a chaperon, and setting up an establishment of my own, I could make myold age happy with having Margaret for a daughter. But there are thoseLennoxes!"
"Who are they?" asked Mr. Thornton with trembling interest.
"Oh, smart London people, who very likely will think they"ve the bestright to her. Captain Lennox married her cousin--the girl she wasbrought 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 tomarry that worthy lady! but that would be quite a pis aller. And thenthere"s that brother!"
"What brother? A brother of her aunt"s?"
"No, no; a clever Lennox, (the captain"s a fool, you must understand) ayoung barrister, who will be setting his cap at Margaret. I know he hashad her in his mind this five years or more: one of his chums told me asmuch; and he was only kept back by her want of fortune. Now that willbe done away with."
"How?" asked Mr. Thornton, too earnestly curious to be aware of theimpertinence of his question.
"Why, she"ll have my money at my death. And if this Henry Lennox ishalf good enough for her, and she likes him--well! I might find anotherway of getting a home through a marriage. I"m dreadfully afraid ofbeing tempted, at an unguarded moment, by the aunt."
Neither Mr. Bell nor Mr. Thornton was in a laughing humour; so theoddity of any of the speeches which the former made was unnoticed bythem. Mr. Bell whistled, without emitting any sound beyond a longhissing breath; changed his seat, without finding comfort or rest whileMr. Thornton sat immoveably still, his eyes fixed on one spot in thenewspaper, which he had taken up in order to give himself leisure tothink.
"Where have you been?" asked Mr. Bell, at length.
"To Havre. Trying to detect the secret of the great rise in the price ofcotton."
"Ugh! Cotton, and speculations, and smoke, well-cleansed and well-cared-for machinery, and unwashed and neglected hands. Poor oldHale! Poor old Hale! If you could have known the change which it wasto him from Helstone. Do you know the New Forest at all?"
"Yes." (Very shortly).
"Then you can fancy the difference between it and Milton. What partwere you in? Were you ever at Helstone? a little picturesque village,like some in the Odenwald? You know Helstone?"
"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 avoidfurther conversation; and Mr. Bell was fain to resort to his former occupation of trying to find out how he could best break the news toMargaret.
She was at an up-stairs window; she saw him alight; she guessed thetruth with 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 bythe same restraining thought she had been turned to stone; so white andimmoveable was she.
"Oh! don"t tell me! I know it from your face! You would have sent--youwould not have left him--if he were alive! Oh papa, papa!"
