If Lady Davyntry could have known what were Margaret's thoughts just at the time when Mr. Baldwin went away, she would have felt some discouragement, though not so much as a person less given to enthusiasm, and to the raising of a fancy to the rank and importance of a hobby. She had never realised any of the painful features of Mrs. Hungerford's past life; she had never tried to realise them. Her mind was not of an order to which the realisation of circumstances entirely out of the sphere of her experience was possible, and she never speculated upon them.
In a different way, and for quite another class of reason, Lady Davyntry had arrived at a state of mind similar to that of Mr. Carteret, who regarded the blissful feet of his son-in-law's death as not only the termination, but the consignment to oblivion, of all the misery his existence had occasioned.
"Of course she is low at times," thought Lady Davyntry; "that is only natural. After all, she must feel herself out of her place at Chayleigh, with that detestable woman. But that will not last; and she will be all the brighter and the happier when Fitz has her safely at home."
The world would have found it hard to understand that Mr. Baldwin's only sister--the great, rich, enviable, to-be-captured-if-possible Mr. Baldwin's sister--should desire so ardently the marriage of her brother with a person who had no fortune, no claim to personal distinction, and--a story. Horrible dowry for a woman! Better any insignificance, however utter.
And Margaret? While Mr. Baldwin was attending to the long-neglected demands, undergoing active persecution at the hands of a neighbourhood resolved on intimacy, and longing, with all the strength of his heart, for the sight of Margaret's pale face and the sound of her thrilling voice--while his sister was building castles in the air for him to tenant--what of Margaret? What of her who was the centre, so unconsciously to herself, of all these hopes and speculations?
She was perhaps farther just then than she had ever been from a mood which was likely to dispose her towards their realisation. She had been disturbed rather than affected by the perusal of Hayes Meredith's letter. It had immediately succeeded to the outburst of emotion to which she had yielded in the presence of Mr. Baldwin, and for which she had afterwards taken herself severely to task; and it had upset her hard-won equanimity.
She was ashamed of herself, angry with herself, when she found out how much she desired that the past should be utterly forgotten. She had had to bear it all, and she had borne it, not so badly on the whole; but she did not want any reference to it; she shrunk from any external association with it as from a physical pain. Her reluctance to encounter any such association had strangely increased within the past few weeks.
She did not know, she did not ask herself, why. Was she ungrateful because she had felt intense reluctance to read Hayes Meredith's letter? Had she forgotten, had she ceased to thank him for all he had done to lighten her lot? Was she so cold, so "shallow-hearted," as to think, as many a vulgar-minded woman would have thought, that her account with the man who had succoured her in a strange land was closed with the cheque which her father had given her to be sent to him, in payment of the money he had lent her?
No, Margaret Hungerford was not ungrateful; but there was a sore spot in her heart which something--she did not ask what--was daily making sorer; the letter had touched it, and she shrunk with keen unexplained anguish from the touch. She lay awake the whole night after she had read the letter from Melbourne, and it seemed to her that she lived all the old agonies of despair, rage, humiliation, and disgust over again.
It chanced that the next day James Dugdale was ill. This was so common an occurrence that no one thought much about it. James was familiar with suffering, and it was the inevitable penalty of fatigue. Not for him was the healthy sense of being tired, and of refreshing rest. Fatigue came to him with pain and fever, with racked limbs, and irritable nerves, and terrible depression. His journey had tired him, and he lay all day on the couch placed in the window of his room.