"What I thought of Mrs. Hungerford is more to your present purpose, Nelly," said her brother, in an embarrassed voice. "I quite agree with you in thinking her very charming, but she looks as if she had gone through a great deal."
"Yes; doesn't she, poor dear?" said Lady Davyntry, who simply did not possess the power to comprehend even the outlines of Margaret's life; "but now that she is at home, it will be all right; I shall have her with me as much as possible, and she will soon forget all her troubles."
Mr. Baldwin did not reply. There was something in Mrs. Hungerford's face which forbade him to believe that Davyntry and its mistress would prove a panacea for whatever was the source of that expression. It was not grief, as grief is felt for the dead who have been worthily loved and are fitly mourned.
It was an utter forlornness, combined with suppressed energy. It was the expression of one who had been utterly deceived and disappointed, and was now crushed by the sense of bankruptcy and defeat in life. The quiet manner which had been so satisfactory to the shallow perceptions of Lady Davyntry did not impress her brother in the same way.
"That is a woman," he thought, "who has gone perilously near to the confines of despair."
When he had seen Lady Davyntry into the house, Mr. Baldwin turned away from the door, and went a long ramble through the fields. His wanderings did not take him out of Chayleigh; and once he stood still, looking towards the window where Margaret's figure had been dimly seen by him that morning, and thought,
"What does this woman mean to me? Not a mere passing interest in my life! What does this woman mean?"
"I suppose you don't see much change in Lady Davyntry?" Mrs. Carteret said to Margaret, after the visitors had departed. "She is as nice-looking, in a common way, and as full of herself as usual."
"Lady Davyntry was always very kind to me," replied Margaret gravely. "In that she is certainly unchanged."
"O yes, she's kind enough, in her empty way," said Mrs. Carteret; "but for my part I don't care about those violent intimacies. I never would be led into them--they are quite in her way. If I would have responded, there would have been perpetual running back and forward between Davyntry and Chayleigh; but that sort of thing does not suit me--I consider it vulgar and insincere."