"Happening to look up, I saw some one on the piazza. It was that horrible Margaret Temple; and when she gazed about from side to side she saw me under the tree, and as I, apparently, took no notice of her, she stepped down from the piazza and came walking across the lawn toward me. If I had been a man I should have cursed my fate; not only was I deprived of every comfort, but here came the disturber of my peace to make me still more unhappy.
"I do not remember what she said when she reached me, but I know she spoke very pleasantly; nor do I remember what I replied, but I am sure I did not speak pleasantly. I was out of humor with the whole world, and particularly with her. She brought a little chair that was near by, and sat down by me. She was a very straightforward person about speaking, and so she said, without any preface:
"'Have you told your husband of that arrangement you made with me if he should survive you?'
"'Of course I have not!' I exclaimed. 'Do you think I would tell him a thing like that, especially when I said I would not? The fact is,' I continued,—and it was very hard for me to keep from crying as I spoke,—'I am just loaded down with trouble, and I cannot tell anybody.'
"'I knew you were troubled,' she replied, 'and that is the reason I came this morning. Why can't you tell me what is the matter?'
"At first this made me angry, and I felt like bouncing off to the house and never speaking to her again; but in the next instant I changed my mind. It would serve her right if I told her everything; and so I did. I made her feel exactly how I had felt when I had thought of her in my place, and how I had determined that it should never be. Then I went on and told her all my plans about George and herself; and how Bernard was to board with them if I died. I made the story a good deal longer than I have made it here. Then I finished by telling her of George's engagement, and how nothing had come of the whole thing except that Bernard had supposed that I thought too much of George, and had gone away that morning as cold as a common acquaintance; and that I felt as though my whole life had been wrecked, and that she had done it.
"It was easy to see that she was not affected as she should have been by what I said. In fact, she looked as though she wanted to laugh; but her respect for me prevented that.
"'I do not see,' she said, 'how I have wrecked your life.'
"'That may be so,' I answered, 'but it is because you do not want to see it. I should think that even you would admit that it is enough to drive me crazy to see any woman waiting and longing for the day which would give her that which I prize more than anything else in the world. And to think what you are aspiring to! None of the old left-overs that other people have offered to you, but my Bernard, the very prince of men! I do not wonder you were so quick to promise me you would take him!'
"She jumped up, and I thought she was going away; but she did not go, and turned again toward me, and remarked, just as coolly as anybody could speak: 'Well, I do not wonder, either. Your Bernard is a most estimable man, and if nothing should happen in any way or at any time to interfere in the case of his surviving you I shall be happy to marry him. I think I would make him a very good wife.'