"Sold the place! How could I live in the place to be reminded at every turn that it was not really mine? Every tree, every shrub, seemed to be a witness against me. I grew to loathe the place."
"And what made you think I knew anything?"
"Because your father was so much with mine," he answered slowly; "I never was sure, but I sometimes fancied he knew something."
"He knew nothing, but he did guess; he said, when you sold the place, it was strange, that a man that was well-to-do would not sell a family-place without a strong reason.... But my father was right in what he said," she exclaimed, her eyes becoming brilliant as she saw the fulfilment of his prophecy coming nearer and nearer; "he said you would have your own, my dear, and you have it now!"
She spoke as though Mrs. Dorriman were still present.
Margaret saw that Mr. Sandford was almost past consciousness, and she hurried them away leaving him alone with the doctor, whom she summoned.
Mrs. Dorriman, who for so long now had been kept out of her rights, was quite overwhelmed by this sudden reversion of all her accustomed conclusions; all the long years of her dependence had so nearly crushed her spirit that it was difficult for her mind to grasp her present position. Mr. Stevens was full of patience.
"And the place is sold!" she said, with a sudden sense of not being able to have it, in spite of all.
"I think we can get the man who bought it to give it up," said Mr. Stevens; "we will try at any rate."
She was crying bitterly; she remembered her father's gentle indecision, even about trifles, and indeed her youth would have been far, far happier had he only been able to stand against his son's overbearing temper; but the knowledge of the wrong he had done him made him give in to him. He had been a man who hated anything that disturbed his tranquillity, and only when obliged and forced to do so had he told his son the truth. The effect of this blow was terrible. To have been allowed to grow up looking upon his position as certain, and, just when he was most anxious to have a fair future to offer to the Margaret Rivers he worshipped, to have everything swept away from under his feet, nearly turned his brain.