"Was your husband!" he echoed.
"He is dead--my darling, your friend, is dead! Keep close to me; I shall soon be well. And you loved him more than all the others! Bless you for saying it. But who could help loving that noble heart? I will tell you all by-and-by; these words between us are in sacred confidence until I unseal your lips."
They were both too affected to speak for several minutes, and then Margaret placed in Gerald's hand the letter which Philip had given into Mr. Hart's charge. He opened it in her presence. Hungering to see her Philip's writing, she looked over his shoulder. There was no writing inside; Gerald drew out a packet of bank-notes, which he held in his hand with a bewildered air. They looked at each other for an explanation.
"Nay, it is you that must unriddle it," said Margaret.
He counted the notes; they amounted to a large sum, four hundred pounds. Margaret saw, by a sudden flash in Gerald's eyes, that he could explain the mystery. After much persuasion he told her briefly that when he and Philip were at college together he had signed bills for Philip for four hundred pounds, which he had to pay.
"My Philip repays you now," said Margaret, in a grateful tone. "And yet when I spoke of him you used no word of reproach towards him; others to whom he might have owed the money would not have been so forbearing."
"He was my friend," said Gerald, "and I loved him. Poor dear Philip!"
She took his hand and kissed it; then she thought of Lucy.
"And now I want to speak to you about Lucy," she said. "If your father knew that it was the daughter of his oldest friend you loved, would he give his consent to your engagement?"
The words in which he answered her were a sufficient confirmation of her fears.