"Let us look at the matter in this light, Mrs. Grey." The speaker was Mr. Robinson, and his tone was particularly lively. "Your husband has cause, fancied or real—for the sake of argument we must put that part of the question aside—your husband, we shall say, has cause of complaint against you. He has ceased to consider you a fit guardian for his daughter after the first unconsciousness of childhood. What ought to be his method of proceeding in such a case? Why, clearly this. He should advertise you, through your solicitor, of his desire, and allow him to negotiate between you. Had he done so, my advice no doubt would have been of some service. I should have suggested that Miss Laura should be placed, for the time being, in some educational establishment where both parents could have had access to her, even, if Mr. Grey had insisted upon this point, under certain restrictions on your side."
Mr. Robinson paused at this point as if for consideration. Mrs. Grey shivered slightly, and drew her shawl more closely round her shoulders. It was a beautiful July day. The sun was shining brightly, the birds were singing, there was the warm breath of summer upon everything, but Margaret was like one stricken with a chill. Her face was pale and haggard, her dark mournful eyes were sunken, her long white fingers, almost transparent, twitched nervously from time to time.
"But Mr. Grey has not acted in this way," she said with some fretfulness in her tone.
"Patience, my dear lady," he answered in the lively manner with which he had entered upon the subject; "we are coming to that point presently. Affliction, you know, cometh not forth of the dust. Job suffered grievously, but held fast his integrity. In this world tribulation; your trials are sent; you must ask for the grace of patience, that you may be enabled to bear them worthily. But to return. The first point we should consider is this: Who was actually the person that removed your daughter from your care? the second, How and in what method was such removal accomplished? In this you must help me. Will you try and make a concise statement of the events of the day in question—what your occupations were, how your child came to be alone—giving me also the grounds of your suspicion that Mr. Grey is a party to the kidnapping of his child?—Rather amusing, by the bye, when one comes to think of it—a father running away with his own daughter." Mr. Robinson laughed pleasantly at his own joke, which did not seem to impress his companion so agreeably.
Margaret rose from her chair impatiently, rang the bell and walked to the door of the room: "I shall send you the servant, Mr. Robinson; she was the only person in the house when my daughter was taken away."
She went out into the garden and stood under the trees. The sun was falling on her hair, the soft wind swept it back from her brow, but her pale lips quivered, and from her eyes came no responsive gladness to meet the beauty of the summer morning. She was wondering why she had sent for this man, why she had laid bare her bleeding heart. Would it not have been better, a thousand times better, to have hidden this last anguish as she had hidden the others—to have suffered and wept in silence? For the lawyer's keen criticism and unsparing common sense had been like a kind of analysis of her torture—had added to her sorrow the agony of undeserved humiliation. Her husband had insulted her. This was the bitterest drop in her cup of anguish, and this Mr. Robinson, a representative of the world, which is given to harsh judgment of the weak, had not failed to bring clearly before her mind. It was bitterly hard to be borne.
She thought, and bowed her head upon her breast with a sigh that seemed to drain the life-blood from her heart. How was it that everything grated upon her, wounded her? What had she expected, then? she asked herself. That this man, a man of business, with interests and affections of his own, would enter tenderly and religiously into the sanctuary of her grief, would touch her wound lightly, would bring help without adding suffering? Was it not folly, madness? But she would cast this morbid sentimentality aside; Heaven would grant her in time the hardness she needed.
She sat down on a seat under the tree. She could see through the parlor-window that Jane was taking full advantage of her position. She was interviewing the lawyer to some effect, talking volubly and illustrating her statement with expressive gestures.
Margaret could not help smiling faintly. As a calmer mood returned she felt she had put herself in a somewhat ridiculous position. She returned to the house, breaking in upon a florid account of Jane's terror on the night following Laura's disappearance. "That's quite enough, Jane," she said, some of her old dignity in her voice and manner; "you may go down stairs now."
The landlady by no means approved of the interruption. She had been giving the lawyer her statement, in keen and hungry expectation of his. He would probably, she thought, unfold to her some of the mysteries that had been perplexing her, and now she was summarily dismissed.