She felt as though a prison door had closed upon her.
Alas! could she have looked forward and seen the real future lying before her, how far, far deeper had been her anguish—how agonized her feelings!
She went upstairs with her baby. She had seen her husband turn into his sitting-room down stairs, and she stayed till dinner was ready, then she met him.
He was silent and sullen during dinner, and she tried in vain to get him to speak.
It was a dismal meal. Margaret was tired by her unwonted exertions, and frightfully depressed by the news she had heard, and Mr. Drayton was jealous and miserable and full of plans of vindictive revenge, his wife's written opinion of him rankling in his heart.
Next day fresh complications arose. Grace sent her sister a note asking her if she could pay for the attendant and various luxuries she had had. "I don't think I told you that I had a violent tiff with old Sandford when I left him, so of course I cannot ask him for money. Will you send it to me to-day, please?"
Margaret had spent the very little she had in her yesterday's expedition; but she thought, though her husband would not have her sister in the house that he would not mind helping her. He had been generous enough when they were at Torbreck.
"Will you please give me a cheque?" she said to him when they met.
"What for?"
"I want to pay some things for my sister. You will not allow her to come here. She is not well enough to go back to Scotland. She wants the money."