"You can go if you choose, but you will learn nothing. I told Mr Slow that I would bid you wait till I heard from him again. It is time now for us to get ready for dinner."
Then, as he was going to leave the room, she took him by the coat and held him again,—held him as fast as she had done on the pavement in Lincoln's Inn Fields. There was a soft, womanly, trusting weakness in the manner of her motion as she did this, which touched him now as it had touched him then.
"John," she said, "if there is to be so much delay, I must not stay here."
"Why not, Margaret?"
"My aunt does not like my staying; I can see that; and I don't think it is fair to do so while she does not know all about it. It is something like cheating her out of the use of the house."
"Then I will tell her."
"What, all? Had I not better go first?"
"No; you cannot go. Where are you to go to? I will tell her everything to-night. I had almost made up my mind to do so already. It will be better that they should both know it,—my father and my mother. My father probably will be required to say all that he knows about the matter."
"I shall be ready to go at once if she wishes it," said Margaret.
To this he made no answer, but went upstairs to his bedroom, and there, as he dressed, thought again, and again, and again of his cousin Margaret. What should he do for her, and in what way should he treat her? The very name of the Mackenzies he had hated of old, and their names were now more hateful to him than ever. He had correctly described his own feelings towards them when he said, either truly or untruly, that they had deprived him of that which would have made his whole life prosperous instead of the reverse. And it seemed as though he had really thought that they had been in fault in this,—that they had defrauded him. It did not, apparently, occur to him that the only persons he could blame were his uncle Jonathan and his own lawyers, who, at his uncle's death, had failed to discover on his behalf what really were his rights. Walter Mackenzie had been a poor creature who could do nothing. Tom Mackenzie had been a mean creature who had allowed himself to be cozened in a petty trade out of the money which he had wrongfully acquired. They were odious to him, and he hated their memories. He would fain have hated all that belonged to them, had he been able. But he was not able to hate this woman who clung to him, and trusted him, and felt no harsh feelings towards him, though he was going to take from her everything that had been hers. She trusted him for advice even though he was her adversary! Would he have trusted her or any other human being under such circumstances? No, by heavens! But not the less on that account did he acknowledge to himself that this confidence in her was very gracious.