"No, no! It can't be—it won't be!" cried Meg.
"Who will prevent it?" said the old gentleman.
"Mr. Standish. He is my friend—he shall prevent it! I will write to him—he will fetch me away!" cried Meg incoherently, with a despairing sense of the futility of her assertions.
"Where will you write to him?" asked the stranger sharply. "Listen, child. You do not deserve that I should trouble myself on your account, and it seems as if you did not care to deserve that I should. There was one whom I loved who proved base and ungrateful. I left him to his fate."
He paused. Meg had not understood this mysterious speech. Her blood grew cold. After a moment the stranger resumed: "I do not doubt this Mr. Standish showed you much kindness, and I will not blame you because you are grateful to him; but from the moment you left your former life Mr. Standish passed out of it. He does not know where you are. He never will know. You do not know where he is. I do not know it; I could tell you nothing about him. Dismiss him from your thoughts." He made a gesture as if, with his uplifted hand, he were tearing the tie between her and that friend of her childhood. "Remember you owe duty and gratitude to another now. Be silent!"
"Oh, I want to know where he is—I want to know!" cried Meg, breaking again into incoherent appeal.
The old gentleman did not reply. He sat there silent, his face growing dimmer as the evening deepened. Suddenly Meg realized the desolation that had overtaken her, and throwing herself forward with her face prone down upon the cushions, she burst into weeping, with speechless sobs.
The stranger made no effort to comfort her. When the paroxysm of weeping had spent itself Meg turned her head, and saw that the night had come. The stars were out in the sky. By their light she dimly discerned the old gentleman's face. She thought that he was looking at her, then she saw that he lay back with his eyes closed, as if asleep.
She did not move. A hope and an assurance which had hitherto filled her heart had gone out of her life, and she lay there an atom of despair lost in a void of desolation. The carriage drove noiselessly on. She was vaguely aware of the still freshness of the night spreading about her. She knew when the carriage stopped, and when lights flashed, and familiar voices, speaking excitedly, sounded near. Still she did not stir.
She confusedly heard the old gentleman ask for Miss Reeves, and this lady reply. She recognized Miss Grantley's accents angrily asserting she ought not to be taken back. Then again she knew the stranger requested that she should be put to bed and given some food, while he had a private talk with the head-mistress.