Will's being there made the only objection Margaret saw to this plan. She disliked the idea of seeming to throw herself in his way; and yet she did not like to say any thing of this feeling to Jem, who had all along seemed perfectly unconscious of any love-affair, besides his own, in progress.
So Margaret gave a reluctant consent.
"If you can just step up to our house to-night, Jem, I'll put up a few things as may be useful to Mary, and then you can say when you'll likely be back. If you come home to-morrow night, and Will's there, perhaps I need not step up?"
"Yes, Margaret, do! I shan't leave easy unless you go some time in the day to see mother. I'll come to-night, though; and now good-bye. Stay! do you think you could just coax poor Will to walk a bit home with you, that I might speak to mother by myself?"
No! that Margaret could not do. That was expecting too great a sacrifice of bashful feeling.
But the object was accomplished by Will's going up-stairs immediately on their return to the house, to indulge his mournful thoughts alone. As soon as Jem and his mother were left by themselves, he began on the subject uppermost in his mind.
"Mother!"
She put her handkerchief from her eyes, and turned quickly round so as to face him where he stood, thinking what best to say. The little action annoyed him, and he rushed at once into the subject.
"Mother! I am going back to Liverpool to-morrow morning to see how Mary Barton is."
"And what's Mary Barton to thee, that thou shouldst be running after her in that-a-way?"