"Most likely you never will hear it mentioned, sir," said James. "If you like, I'll tell Margaret you would rather she did not talk about him."
"Do, do," said Mr. Carteret eagerly. He hated explanations, and would never encounter anything he disliked if he could at all decently avoid doing so. "The only good or pleasant thing that could be heard in connection with the fellow, I heard when you told me he was under the sod, and there is no use in hearing bad and unpleasant things. Of course, the child knows she is welcome home; and the very best thing she can do is to forget the scoundrel ever existed."
The ignorance of human nature, and the oblivion of his wife's peculiarities, which this speech betrayed, were equally characteristic of Mr. Carteret; but James Dugdale could not smile at them when Margaret was concerned.
He determined to say nothing to the young widow's father about her expressed resolution of leaving Chayleigh again, but to abandon that issue to circumstances and the success of the mode of argument he intended to pursue with Mrs. Carteret. He would go and fetch Margaret home presently, when he had spoken to his cousin. He thought it better her father should not accompany him, and Mr. Carteret, who had some very choice beetles to unpack and prepare, thought so too.
He delightedly anticipated Margaret's pleasure in exploring the extended treasures of his collection, and was altogether in such an elated state of mind that he had consigned the whole of Margaret's married life as completely to oblivion as he had forgotten the partner of that great disaster, by the time James Dugdale passed before the windows of his study on his way to fulfil his mission of peace and reconciliation.
It never occurred to him to think about how his wife was likely to take the news of Margaret's return. Mrs. Carteret had not given him any trouble herself, or permitted other people to give him any trouble, since Margaret and Haldane had gone their own way in life, and he was not afraid of her departing now from that excellent rule of conduct.
"Margaret is not a child now, and they are sure to get on together," said the mild and inexperienced elderly gentleman, as he daintily handled some insect remains as reverently as if they had been mummies of the Rameses; "each can have her own way." He had forgotten Margaret's "own way," and he knew very little about Mrs. Carteret's.
It was rather odd that his wife did not come to talk about the news that James Dugdale had communicated to her. He wondered at that a little. He would go and find her, and they should talk it over together, presently, when he had put this splendid scarabaeus all right--a great creature!--how fortunate he had secured it, just as old Fooster was on the scent of it too!
And so Mr. Carteret went on, and the minutes went on, and he had not yet completed his arrangements for the adequate display of the scarabaeus, when two figures, one in heavy black robes, passed quickly between him and the light. A window-sash was thrown up from the outside, and Margaret Hungerford's arms were round her father's neck.
Under the roof of Chayleigh, on that bright autumn night, there was but one tranquil sleeper. That one was Mr. Carteret. He was thoroughly happy. Margaret had come home, Godfrey Hungerford was dead, and she had never mentioned his name.