[CHAPTER III.]
DISCOMFITURE.
When the engagement between Godfrey Hungerford and Margaret Carteret had lasted six months, during which time James Dugdale had contrived to learn several facts to that gentleman's disadvantage, Haldane Carteret made his appearance unexpectedly at Chayleigh. Margaret's first look at her brother revealed to her quick instinctive fears that his errand had in it something unfriendly to her love. With all the selfishness which comes of an engrossing feeling, she was insensible to any other impulse of alarm.
Margaret was right; her brother was come to unsay all he had said of Godfrey Hungerford--to tell his father that he had been deceived in his friend--to try to undo the work he had helped to do.
"He drinks and gambles, Margaret; for God's sake, don't marry a man with such vices," said Haldane eagerly to his sister.
Her father roused himself, and warned her too; but the girl was obdurate. She only knew of such things by name; they had no meaning to her as terrible realities of life; and then she had her lover's letters--the priceless, charming, incomparable letters--and they told her that her brother had come round to Dugdale's way of thinking, and had turned against him because he had interfered to keep him out of some boyish scrapes.
The strongest and most spurious of all arguments too, used to a loving foolish girl, were not wanting. If even he were guilty of some follies, granting that he was not a perfect being, could he fail to become so under her influence--could he resist such perfection as hers, become the light and guidance of his home? It is needless to repeat the flimsy foolish strain of the arguments which bewildered and beguiled the girl. She met her father and her brother with vehement opposition, and replied to everything they urged, that she alone knew, she only understood Godfrey, and she was not going to forsake him to serve the turn of interested calumniators.
This taunt, aimed at the brother, did not hit the mark. He had not the least notion to what it referred. The young man spoke frankly and gently to the infatuated girl, lamented his own easy credulity which had at first betrayed his judgment, and finally left the matter in his father's hands, only entreating him to be firm, and to take into consideration, in addition to what he had told him, certain circumstances which had come to the knowledge of James Dugdale. For himself, the pain of enforced association with his quondam friend would soon be at an end. The brigade of Royal Artillery to which he belonged was then under orders for Canada, and this was to be his farewell visit to his home.
The brother and sister parted, in sorrow on Haldane's part--in silent and sullen estrangement on Margaret's. The girl's heart was full of angry and bitter revolt, and of the keen indignation which inexperienced youth feels against those who strive to serve it against its will. They were trying to protect her from herself--to save her from the worst of evils--the most cruel of destinies; and she treated them as if they had been, as indeed she believed them to be, her worst enemies.
But they were not to succeed--Margaret was not to be saved. The girl's life at home--though no one molested her--though her father, if the matter were not pressed upon his attention, took no notice--though her stepmother was, as usual, coldly but civilly negligent of her--though James Dugdale maintained his inoffensive reserve--became intolerable to her; intolerable through its loneliness--intolerable by reason of its cross-purposes. The one thought, the one image, the one hope for which she lived was not only unshared, but condemned by those with whom she lived. The one name precious to her heart, delightful to her ears, was never spoken within her hearing--the little world she lived in ignored him who was all the world to her.