The girl winced.
“No, no,” she cried; “never! I think I should simply crawl for fear that under the wheels somewhere would be a child, a dog, a chicken, or even a helpless worm—something that moved and that I might hurt. There is already so much—suffering!”
Brandon laughed uneasily and drew back, a puzzled frown on his face. He had not meant that she should take his jest so seriously.
It was on the day after New Year’s, when all the guests had gone, that Margaret once more said to her guardian that she wished to speak to him, and on business. Frank Spencer told himself that he was used to this sort of thing now, and that he was resigned to the inevitable; but his eyes were troubled, and his lips were close-shut as he motioned the girl to precede him into the den.
“I thought I ought to tell you,” she began, plunging into her subject with an abruptness that betrayed her nervousness, “I thought I ought to tell you at once that I—I cannot go with you when you all go away next week.”
“You cannot go with us!”
“No. I must stay here.”
“Here! Why, Margaret, child, that is impossible!—here in this great house with only the servants?”
“No, no, you don’t understand; not here at Hilcrest. I shall be down in the town—with Patty.”
“Margaret!” The man was too dismayed to say more.