A fortnight later he had redeemed his promise. He had found his way to the preacher's house. It was, to Mr. Sauls' mind, the most God-forsaken spot he had ever come across. Holding Margaret Thorpe's hand in his, he tried to discover what had happened to Margaret Deane.
He was prepared for the meeting, and, even if he had not been, his natural instinct for the expedient would have led him to behave as if nothing very remarkable had occurred since he had last talked to her in her aunt's drawing-room; as if this encounter were the most ordinary thing in the world. But Meg, who was not prepared, started at sight of him as though she had seen a ghost.
Tom Thorpe, whom he had met about a mile from the farm, stood staring at them both from under his heavy eyebrows. Mrs. Tremnell hurried into the kitchen, attracted by the sound of a strange voice, and peeped over Meg's shoulder at the visitor, wondering in her own mind what Barnabas, who didn't like gentlefolk, would have said to him. But Mr. Sauls talked on in an even tone about his journey and the weather, to give Meg time to recover herself.
"Is my father well?" she said at last. "Oh," with a smile of relief, when he had reassured her, "then nothing else matters!" For a moment she had feared that this messenger from the past had come to tell her that her father was dead.
Mr. Sauls smiled a trifle bitterly. He had always known that Meg expended an immense amount of affection on her father, and that she had never had any sentiment to spare for himself; but familiarity does not always blunt the sharp edge of a fact, and at that moment he would have felt himself "less of a fool" if her emotion had been awakened on his own account.
He sat down to the mid-day meal with them, Tom inviting him somewhat unwillingly; and Meg, after the first shock of surprise, lost her nervousness, and brightened up.
She had often in old days had reason to be grateful to Mr. Sauls for his savoir faire; now she was once more thankful for it.
He made no allusion to her former life; looked as if he were accustomed to dining in a kitchen at twelve o'clock, and discoursed on the breeding of horses, as if that, of all subjects in the world, interested him most. Tom talked with a broader accent than usual, and with an underlying antagonism that puzzled Meg. Mrs. Tremnell's manner became more superfine and her words longer; but, except for one moment at the end of the meal, Mr. Sauls was his ordinary and imperturbable self. It was a pleasure—Meg was ashamed to find how great a pleasure—to be again with some one who did not drop his h's, or answer with his mouth full, or put his knife between his lips, and on whose tact she could rely.
"What this poor lady must have suffered here passes a man's understanding, I suspect," George reflected grimly; and, although he was not a forgiving person, he forgave Margaret a good deal of the pain she had most unwittingly brought on him, when he saw Tom Thorpe help her to the dish in front of him with his own fork, and noticed that she tried to "look as it she liked it". Possibly the things for which he pitied her were not those which weighed most heavily on her; but even the warmest sympathy is apt to be undiscriminating.