All the next day she lived like one in a dream.
She never asked herself whether she had acted wisely or even rightly in listening to him, or promising to meet him again. Wisdom and propriety were swamped and overwhelmed by the full tide of love which had taken possession of her.
Once there flashed upon her the thought that she ought to tell her grandmother, but the same instant she felt that it would be impossible. It would be like sacrilege to utter a word of this new mystery which she had discovered. Besides, she had not yet given him his answer. It would be time enough to tell Mrs. Hale after then.
In the evening she wandered slowly to the glade, and rested on the spot where she had sat the day before; and there she re-enacted the whole scene so vividly that she could almost believe that he was really present, kneeling at her side, and holding her hand.
With a sigh, she leaned her head on her hand, and tried to think it out, but she could not think. A great joy, like a great pain, makes thought impossible.
The day passed, she scarcely knew how, and the night. She slept some hours, but her sleep was full of dreams, in which Lord Leyton was the predominant figure; the handsome face may be said to have hovered about her pillow; and when she awoke, flushed and quivering, it was to have the sense of her great joy sweeping over her anew like an overwhelming flood.
"Margaret, my dear, you look pale," said Mrs. Hale, at breakfast. "It's the heat. I wouldn't go painting in the gallery to-day. It's hot there, and the colors must give you a headache, I should think. If I were you, I'd go and sit in the woods; there is some shade there, and it's cool, especially near the cascade."
Margaret colored furiously. It almost seemed as if Mrs. Hale had got an inkling of her appointment with Lord Blair.
"I will go to the woods, grandma," she said; and she put her arm round the old lady's neck, and laid her soft cheek against the withered one.
"Yes, my dear," said Mrs. Hale, "you can go there quite safely, for the earl never walks there even when he does go out, and Lord Leyton's gone. But you won't disturb the birds, Margaret, will you? Mr. Simpson, the head keeper, is so particular."