Bowing once more with that impassible fineness of mien, the old gentleman opened the door and disappeared.
Meg felt crushed as by some physical blow. The gratitude that she had harbored in her heart till it was filled to bursting all those years was thrown back upon it, and the pain stifled her. She realized her loneliness as she never had realized it before. She wandered blindly out into the park, and for the first time, in the heart of nature, she felt like an outcast. She rebelled against the isolation to which her benefactor would condemn her. It felt like an insult.
To be grateful to those who are good to us is a sacred right. He had no authority to take from her this God-given privilege. After awhile she grew calmer, but a melancholy fell over her such as she had never known.
Day succeeded day, and the intercourse between Meg and her host remained but little changed. She watched him curiously whenever she had the opportunity. She came to know his habits. A young man was closeted with him for some hours every morning. Mrs. Jarvis told Meg he was Sir Malcolm's secretary, and read the papers to him, as the baronet's eyesight was beginning to fail. He had lodgings in the village.
Sir Malcolm rode out alone, walked alone, took his meals alone, spent his evenings alone. Occasionally some elderly country squires called at the house; but there was apparently no intimacy between the baronet and his neighbors. Meg often watched her host wandering about the park; there was an alley he haunted. As he paced backward and forward, his hands behind his back, his tall figure, slender almost to gauntness, clothed in the somewhat old-fashioned costume he affected, his white hair shining like spun glass about his pale, high-featured face, she thought he looked like a ghost which had stepped down out of one of the pictures. Little by little she grew to feel an intense interest in that stately specter.
Whenever they met Sir Malcolm was courteous and cold. Sometimes he passed her by with that old-world salute; oftener he stopped to inquire after her comfort, to offer with distant interest suggestions for her amusement. He recommended her books to read; he once pointed out to her the parts of the house to which historical interest was attached.
He attracted and repelled Meg. She was always in a fright when she was near him. His glance withered every impulse to pass the distance he imposed between them. A chill air seemed around him, as might be round an iceberg. The look of power on his face, the suggestion his appearance gave of a strong, self-contained personality, possessed for her the same sort of fascination as the flash and iridescence of an iceberg that will not melt. The interest Meg felt for her host kept pace with her fear. She always connected that picture turned to the wall with his history and his character. There it was always in presence, and yet under apparently some black disgrace.
Away from Sir Malcolm, she would indulge a zeal to win his regard, to conquer it. Watching his solitary pacings to and fro, a pity would fill her heart for the lonely man who had been so good to her. In his presence came the chill, checking every expression of emotion. Sometimes when she met his glance she fancied her benefactor disliked her.
The sadness deepened upon Meg—the sadness of a sensitive nature condemned to isolation. The inaction of her days wearied her. She looked back with a touch of nostalgia on the busy schooldays, and mourned anew for Elsie, who had allowed her to give love. Meg's pride also rebelled against eating the bread of idleness under her benefactor's roof: that gentle independence had grown a sort of second nature with her.
One morning she was aware of a certain flurry through the house. Mrs. Jarvis told her that Sir Malcolm's secretary had been called away suddenly to London on important family business, and that the master was left with his papers alone.