As to Margaret, Janetta thought that she was looking exquisitely lovely. Her thinness added to the impression of ethereal beauty; there was a delicacy about her appearance which struck the imagination. Her color fluctuated; her eyes shone like stars; and her whole frame seemed a little tremulous, as if she were shaken by some strange and powerful emotion to her very soul. Her broad-brimmed straw hat, white dress, and long tan gloves belonged, as Janetta knew, only to her ordinary attire when no visitors were to be seen; but simplicity of dress always seemed to garnish Margaret's beauty, and to throw it into the strongest possible relief. She was sufficiently striking in aspect to frighten poor, timid Mrs. Brand, who was never happy when she found herself in the company of "fashionable" people. But it was with a perfectly simple and almost child-like manner that Margaret drew her finger away from Wyvis' clasp and went up to his mother, holding out both hands as if in appeal for help.
"I am Margaret," she said. "I ought not to have come; but what could I do? They are going to take me away from the Court to-morrow, and I could not go without seeing you and Wyvis first."
"Wyvis?" repeated Mrs. Brand, blankly. She had not taken Margaret's hands, but now she extended her right hand in a stiff, lifeless fashion, which looked like anything but a welcome. "I do not know—I do not understand——"
"It is surely easy enough to understand," said Wyvis, vehemently. "She loves me—she has promised to be my wife—and you must love her, too, for my sake, as well as for her own."
"Won't you love me a little?" said Margaret, letting her eyes rest pleadingly on Mrs. Brand's impassive face. She was not accustomed to being met in this exceedingly unresponsive manner. Wyvis made a slight jesture of impatience, which his mother perfectly understood. She tried, in her difficult, frozen way, to say something cordial.
"I am very pleased to see you," she faltered. "You must excuse me if I did not understand at first. Wyvis did not tell me."
Then she sank into her chair again, more out of physical weakness than from any real intention to seat herself. Her hand stole to her side, as if to still the beating of her heart; her face had turned very pale. Only Janetta noticed these signs, which betrayed the greatness of the shock; Margaret, absorbed in her own affairs, and Wyvis absorbed in Margaret, had no eyes for the poor mother's surprise and agitation. Janetta made a step forward, but she saw that she could do nothing. Mrs. Brand was recovering her composure, and the other two were not in a mood to bear interruption. So she waited, and meanwhile Margaret spoke.
"Dear Mrs. Brand," she said, kneeling at the side of the trembling woman, and laying her clasped hands on her lap, "forgive me for startling you like this." Even Janetta wondered at the marvelous sweetness of Margaret's tones. "Indeed, I would not have come if there had been any other way of letting Wyvis know. They made me promise not to write to him, not to meet him in the wood where we met before you know, and they watched me, so that I could not get out, or send a message or anything. It has been like living in prison during the last few days." And the girl sobbed a little, and laid her forehead for a moment on her clasped hands.
"It's a shame—a shame! It must not go on," exclaimed Wyvis, indignantly.
"In one way it will not go on," said Margaret, raising her head. "They are going to take me away, and we are not to come back for the whole winter—perhaps not next year at all. I don't know where we are going. I shall never be allowed to write. And I thought it would be terrible to go without letting Wyvis know that I will never, never forget him. And I am only nineteen now, and I can't do as I like; but, when I am twenty-one, nobody can prevent me——"