And the song-birds flitted backward and forward over her head, and the sea smiled and the earth rejoiced. There was no answer to the cry of the lonely heart. Patience; yes, patience, poor stricken one! for "when night is darkest, then dawn is near." I wonder who thinks of it when the black darkness is closing around them? Certainly Margaret did not.
She was sitting in the back part of the little garden; from her position she could hear the door-bell and the click of the latch of the front gate, but she could not see those who came in or went out, and through that long day there had been no sound of outside life to break in upon her solitude. It had begun to sicken her as she sat under the trees looking out upon the sunshine.
There was a sound at last—the stopping of wheels at the garden-gate, the latch pushed back with something of impatience, a ring at the door-bell that echoed through the house.
Margaret leapt to her feet and tried to rush forward. It was surely that for which she had been looking—a telegram to tell her something had been done. He had promised to use all possible despatch.
Alas, poor Margaret! The "he" in question was at that moment exciting himself very little about her or her concerns. He was not very far from her. He could have been seen by any who had chosen to take the trouble of looking for him, seated on a strong little black pony, jogging along with great contentment—a conspicuous object on the yellow sands.
In moments of strong excitement physical power sometimes abandons us: perhaps it is that the spirit would master the body, and forgetting its bonds rush forward alone to meet the coming fate, and that then the weakness of its natural home draws it back to its humanity.
It was something like this Margaret experienced. She rose, she would have pressed forward. In an incredibly short time she would have had the message in her hands, but her limbs refused to bear her. She sank back on the garden-seat, compelled, whether she would or no, to wait—to wait.
The delay was not long, but it seemed to her as if the moments were ages, each laden with an agony of suspense, while she sat still in her forced inaction.
Jane crossed the lawn at last with something in her hand, and Margaret covered her face and moaned faintly. If this should be disappointment, how could she bear it? It was disappointment. The message turned out to be a card which Jane put into her hands, explaining as she did so that the young gentleman had come on important business, and wished particularly to see her, if only for a few moments.
"A young gentleman—important business," said Margaret faintly; "then it is not a telegram?"