For a moment it hovered evilly over Lord Blair's head, then, as if smitten by a sudden remorse or a desire for a still deeper revenge, Pyke let the stick fall, and, slinking back, disappeared amongst the shrubs.
[CHAPTER VI.]
Margaret ran into the house, her heart beating fast, the color coming and going in her cheeks. To her amazement and annoyance, she felt that she was actually trembling! Well, if not trembling, quivering, as a leaf quivers when the summer wind passes over its bosom.
What was this that she had done? Notwithstanding her grandmother's warning and her own good resolutions, she had spent—how long!—nearly an hour talking alone with Lord Blair Leyton. And he had given her a rose! Not only given it to her, but fastened it in the antimacassar.
She could feel his fingers touching her still, as it seemed to her! She looked down at the rose, gleaming like a spot of blood on the white cotton of the antimacassar, then, with a sudden gesture, she went to pull it out and fling it through the window; but she averted her hand even as it touched the velvet leaves. Yes, she had done wrong; she ought not to have spoken to him, ought not to have remained with him, and most certainly ought not to have taken the rose from him.
She saw now how wrong she had been. They used to call her "Wild Margaret," "Mad Madge," when she was a child, but she had been trying to become quiet, and dignified, and discreet, and, as it seemed to her, had succeeded, until this wicked young man had tempted her into flirting—was it flirting?—in the starlight.
"You look flushed, my dear," said Mrs. Hale. "Are you tired?"
"I think I am a little," said Margaret, longing to get to the solitude of her own room.
"It's the country air," said the old lady, nodding. "It always makes people from London sleepy. Was it pleasant in the garden?" she added, innocently.