"I am afraid not," he said, not unkindly; "the law as regards the rights of mothers is a little one-sided—a little unjust, I allow, but till they are altered——"
"Good-bye," said Margaret, seized now with a sort of terror, lest something should have happened to her infant during her absence—she felt so far from it, she must hurry back.
"Good-bye, madam," said the old lawyer, seeing before him somebody not usual in his experience. "If your husband ever strikes you we might have a case."
"And my baby!"
"Good gracious—a baby! You have an infant? you look so very young," he said, in a tone of apology. "Ah, well, you see, we need not go into that question just now."
She went downstairs utterly broken down. She had always clung to a belief that if things got very bad she would be able to go. She had had a sort of blind belief that the laws of her country—boasted of so often, and the outcome of so much intellect and ability—were there to fall back upon and to protect her.
She stopped to take breath and gather herself together for a moment, and she was just moving away from the door when some one passed in a hansom,—in another moment he had pulled up short, jumped out, and dismissed the cabman. Then he was beside her, and in the moment of her deepest anguish Sir Albert Gerald stood beside her.
She was utterly miserable, too much crushed to feel surprised. He saw that she was quite unfit to be spoken to, that she had sustained some great shock, and he tried to think rapidly what was best for her.
"I wish to go back to my sister," she said at length in a low voice. "Will you take me there?"
He called a cab and put her into it, and got in and told the man to drive to the station.