"Upstairs, Margaret? Oh yes, if you please. We shall be down directly, my dear, and I dare say Margaret will stay to tea. We tea early, because, since you went, we have dined at one."
Then Mrs Tom led the way up to the room in which Margaret had watched by her dying brother's bed-side.
"I'm come in here," said Mrs Tom, again apologising, "because the children had to come out of the room behind the drawing-room. Miss Colza is staying with us, and she and Mary Jane have your room."
Margaret did not care much for all this; but the solemnity of the chamber in which, when she last saw it, her brother's body was lying, added something to her sadness at the moment.
"Sarah," she said, endeavouring to warn her sister-in-law by the tone of her voice that her news was bad news, "I have just come from Mr Slow."
"He's the lawyer, isn't he?"
"Yes, he's the lawyer. You know what I promised my brother. I went to him to make arrangements for doing it, and when there I heard—oh, Sarah, such dreadful news!"
"He says you're not to do it, I suppose!" And in the woman's voice and eyes there were signs of anger, not against Mr Slow alone, but also against Miss Mackenzie. "I knew how it would be. But, Margaret, Mr Slow has got nothing to do with it. A promise is a promise; and a promise made to a dying man! Oh, Margaret!"
"If I had it to give I would give it as surely as I am standing here. When I told my brother it should be so, he believed me at once."
"Of course he believed you."