‘By no means, dear. Let her follow the bent of her own wishes; it will be best for all of us.’
‘But Uncle Henry will be so surprised; and I am afraid he will be angry—and—and I had so hoped she was going to stay with me, Robert; and I feel so ill—and—and—so nervous, and I can’t bear that Margaret should go away.’ And here the poor girl was quite overcome by the prospect of her own weakness and her companion’s departure, and burst into a flood of childish tears.
I felt very sorry for Janie. She has so thoroughly enjoyed the society of her cousin, and she is not in a condition to be vexed and thwarted with impunity. And then again I thought of Lionne travelling all the way back to Madras by herself, to accept a home from strangers, with nothing but her present unhappiness and her future uncertainty to bear her company; and I felt that neither of these should be the one to suffer, and that if the circumstances required a victim, it should be myself. I did not particularly wish to leave my regiment, nor my wife, nor any one else; but if it is impossible for us to continue on the same footing with one another, I felt that I should be the one to go. So I did not hesitate; but telling Janie to keep her tears until she should be sure they were required, went in search of Margaret Anstruther.
She was neither in the drawing-room nor in the dining-room, but in a little antechamber which it pleases my wife to call her boudoir, but which is the dullest and most unfrequented apartment in the house. There I found her, lying on the sofa, shading her eyes with her hand, but making no attempt at work or reading.
‘Margaret, may I speak to you?’
I could not, because I had offended her, go back to the more formal appellation of ‘Miss Anstruther;’ it seemed so much as though we had quarrelled.
‘If it is of anything I should care to hear,’ she said languidly.
‘It is of something to which I much desire you should listen,’ I replied. ‘Janie has just been telling me that you purpose leaving us. Is that true?’
‘It is,’ she answered curtly, but not unkindly.
‘I will not ask you for what reason,’ I went on to say, ‘because your wishes are your own, and shall be sacred; but if your decision is not irrevocable, think twice before you inflict such a disappointment on poor Janie. You know how weak and ill she is at present.’