The last words decided Margaret—and sealed her fate.
"Oh—well—then, I will see her," she said, reluctantly.
"She's in the parlor, ma'am," said Mrs. Day, still hesitating; and Margaret, after that glance in the glass without which no woman ever goes to meet another, passed into the little passage. But she paused, even with her hand on the handle of the door.
After all it was only some stranger come to beg a subscription to one of the local charities; and yet she had come from a distance! Determining to get rid of her as soon as possible—for she knew that Blair would not wish her to see any one—she opened the door and entered the room.
A woman—Margaret's quick eyes saw at a glance that she was young—was seated with her back to the window. She was dressed very simply, and yet tastefully, in clothes that were almost, if not quite, mourning, and she wore a veil.
As Margaret entered, a faint color mounting in her lovely face, the visitor gave a scarcely perceptible start, either of surprise or admiration, and the hand that held her sunshade trembled.
"Do you wish to see me?" said Margaret, in her musical voice, which seemed to affect the visitor as her face had done.
"Yes," she said in a low voice, which she appeared to keep steady by a palpable effort, "You are—Mrs. Stanley?"
The color grew a little deeper in Margaret's cheeks, and her lids fell a little; but she said quietly:
"Yes, I am Mrs. Stanley."