Margaret shivered a little: "It seems almost wrong, but I can't help it. Oh, if I only knew!"
"We are working for him as well as for you," said Arthur quietly. He felt for the moment an insane inclination to do something desperate to this "him" for whom he was working so disinterestedly. For Margaret looked more beautiful than ever—at least he thought so as she sat there in the moonlight. The young man in his boyish enthusiasm could have fallen before her, and, holding her feet, have worshipped her. But she was so utterly unconscious. Adèle meanwhile was lying on the sofa, listening and watching. She was trying to acquiesce in it all, trying to feel it right that her Arthur should take so deep an interest in another woman—for she knew his face well, she had read that sudden longing—she was trying to rejoice in Margaret's unconsciousness and her cousin's truth; but the little aching was at her heart. Margaret had been, for the moment, absorbed in her own hopes and fears; as Arthur spoke the last words, however, she thought suddenly of Adèle, and crossing to the sofa she sat down by her side.
"Forgive me," she said softly.
"What for, Mrs. Grey?"
Adèle lifted her eyes to her friend's face, and Margaret saw that tears were not far off.
"For sending your Arthur away on this wild search," she whispered. And Arthur, who had been standing at the window gazing regretfully at the stars, and thinking with some discontent of life's contradictions, heard what she said. The words were like a reproach. They made him think of Adèle's self-forgetfulness; they brought back to him the gentle scene of that stormy night.
He turned resolutely from the window, and placing himself at the head of the sofa looked down upon his cousin's young fair face. She put out her hand with a smile; he took it and held it in both his own. "She is not to be pitied, Mrs. Grey," he said lightly, "for this is all her own doing. I am only obeying, like a faithful knight, the orders of my liege lady. She filled my mind with her grand poetic ideas about doing good, and the rest of it; she was always making me ashamed of my idle, aimless life; then after we first met you, and she and I had made up our minds you had some great sorrow, she tried to bring me near to you; and finally, the other day, when, as I told you, part of your history came to us, she sent me off to see you and find out the truth; her orders were—Shall I repeat them, Adèle?"
He had succeeded in making her pale cheeks a "celestial rosy red."
"You have said quite enough, dear, and too much. Have you discovered, Mrs. Grey, that my cousin is rather given to exaggeration?"
"Am I to believe all this is exaggeration?" replied Margaret. And then she stooped and kissed the young girl's glowing face. "It is so very like the truth, Adèle, that you must allow me the happiness of believing it. I shall take the services of your knight as your gift, and we shall watch together for his safe return."