"Here comes the doctor," announced Sadie. "Supposing she won't leave him in her room?"
"Och, but that would make talk!" exclaimed Jennie. "I'll go up and tell her she has to open!"
Margaret, meantime, her sudden gust of passion subsided, realized how foolishly she was acting.
"I can't say I didn't marry him with my eyes open," she prodded herself. "I have no right to scorn him and fly out at him. I see that well enough, alas! I owe him everything I can reasonably give him to make up for my lack of love."
Her sense of her obligation to Daniel did not, however, and never could, include the denial of such fundamental principles as her friendship with Catherine Hamilton, or her own personal freedom in so far as it did not clash with his just rights.
Margaret was not so stupid as to suppose for a moment that she could, by any utmost effort on her part, lead Daniel to see a case like that of George Trout's store rent as she saw it. That he could flaunt and boast of such "deals" proved him too hopelessly obsessed.
"If he were ashamed of it and tried to hide it, there might be some hope of redeeming him. As it is, I certainly shan't waste myself in any such futile endeavour. But if I outlive Daniel, I shall pay to George Trout or his heirs that eight hundred dollars on the very day that I get possession of my widow's third. Or, if I have a son, he shall discharge that debt!"
However, by the time Jennie knocked on her door demanding admission for the doctor, she was in a sufficiently chastened frame of mind to receive both him and her husband with all the outward semblance of a dutifully happy wife.