Her questions regarding her father, her brother, and all that had occurred at Chayleigh during her absence, were numerous and minute, and James answered them without reserve or hesitation. They chiefly related to facts. Margaret dealt but slightly in sentiment; but when she asked James if her father spoke of her sometimes, there was a little change in the tone of her voice, a slight accession of paleness which she could not disguise.
"At first, very seldom; in fact, hardly ever, Margaret, for I see you wish the whole truth, and nothing but the truth; but more frequently of late. Only the day before he and Mrs. Carteret went to Bath, he--you remember his way--was showing me a peculiarly repulsive specimen of some singularly hideous insect, and he said, 'How pleased Margery would have been with that.' Quite a hallucination, if I remember rightly, but still pleasant to hear him say it, and showed me that he was thinking of you. You see this as I do?"
"O yes," she answered, with a smile that was a little hard and bitter, "very pleasant; indeed, the pleasantest possible association of ideas according to papa. And--and Mrs. Carteret?"
James Dugdale hesitated for a little, and then he said,
"You remember what Sibylla is, Margaret, and you know she never cared much for you, or Haldane--"
"Particularly for me," she interrupted, in a tone whose assumed lightness did not impose on James. "Well, she need not fear any intrusion or importunity from me. I have come here because I must--I must see my father once more, before I have for ever done with the old life and begin with the new."
"Are you going away again, Margaret?" said James, astonished. "Going away, after having come home through such suffering and difficulty! Why is this?"
And then it was that Margaret asked him if he were really serious in supposing she had any other intention.
The truth was, she had very vague notions of what she should do with herself. The pride and self-will of her nature, which the suffering she had undergone in Australia had somewhat tamed, had had time for their reawakening during the long voyage; and it was not in the most amiable of moods that Margaret reached her former home.
"Whatever my fault may have been, I have fully expiated it; and I must have peace now, and forgetfulness, if it is to be had," was the form her thoughts took.