Margaret even stood still for one moment. Hope looked the way she was looking, and saw, in the little twilight that remained, the figure of some one who had been walking on the opposite side of the road, but whose walk was now quickened to a run.
“It is—it is he,” said Hope, as Philip disappeared in the darkness. Answering to what he knew must be in Margaret’s thoughts, he continued—
“He knows the state the village is in—the danger that we are all in, and he cannot stay away.”
“‘We!’ ‘All?’”
“When I say ‘we,’ I mean you particularly.”
“If you think so—” murmured Margaret, and stopped for breath.
“I think so; but it does not follow that there is any change. He has always loved you. Margaret, do not deceive yourself. Do not afflict yourself with expectations—”
“Do not speak to me, brother. I cannot bear a word from you about him.”
Hope sighed deeply, but he could not remonstrate. He knew that Margaret had only too much reason for saying this. They walked on in entire silence to the lane.
A fire was now kindled, and a light dimly burned in Platt’s cottage. As Margaret stood by the bedside, watching her brother’s examination of his patient, and anxious to understand rightly the directions he was giving, the poor woman half raised her head from her pillow, and fixed her dull eyes on Margaret’s face, saying, as if thinking aloud: