"It is not the confinement," interrupted Margaret; "Lucy would thrive in a cage if her heart were not disturbed. A secret sorrow is wearing her away--a sorrow that she keeps to herself, and which only one person in the world has the power to wean from her. No, that person is not you--it is I, Margaret! She has not told me yet, but she will! I want but to know the name of the man!"
"The name of the man!" echoed Mr. Hart in a bewildered tone. "In Heaven's name, what man?"
"The man she loves, and who has led her to believe that he loves her."
"You know all this?"
"By instinct only--a fine teacher; better than reason." (He had not the heart to play with her words, or he would have said, "None but a woman can utter them;" but this new grief was too deep for light thought.) "She is a woman, and wants a woman's heart to rest upon in this crisis. She has no mother or sister. Dear friend, that I love with all my strength! that I honour with all my soul! let me be sister and mother to your Lucy! You cannot deny me this! It may be in my power to repay you, in some small way, for your fatherly care of me, for your love and devotion to my darling Philip, and you will not rob me of the opportunity. If I can bring back the smile to your Lucy's lips, the roses to her cheek--if I can bring joy to her heart, I shall again taste happiness which I thought I had lost for ever."
If his stake had been smaller in her matter, he could not have resisted her pleading; as it was, he yielded without another word of remonstrance. He was so broken down by this disclosure that Margaret was compelled to entreat him to hide his sorrow from Lucy's eyes.
"She must not know or suspect that we have been speaking of her," said Margaret; "this sensitive flower that we both love so dearly must be dealt with very tenderly--and wisely too, and cunningly, if needs be."
His words in the conversation that followed showed that he had lost faith in himself, and that he placed his hope solely in this affectionate woman, to whom sorrow had come so early. Up to this point he had not told her of the strange meeting with his boyfriend, Richard Weston, and presently, when he was more composed, he related the incident to her.
"We are to go to his house to-morrow," he said, "Lucy and I."
"And I go with you of course," said Margaret. "I shall contrive to make myself welcome. Tell me. When you took Lucy away from the house of the person with whom she lived for so many years, did you let them know your present address?"