"But if he helps Margaret?" said Mrs. Dorriman; "it is a great thing for her to have a friend near her."
"That may or may not be," said Mr. Sandford, gloomily; and then, fixing his eyes on his sister, he said, "You are very innocent, Anne, but do you think a young fellow like Sir Albert Gerald a safe friend for a beautiful young girl like Margaret, who is unhappily married?"
"But her marriage was not your doing, you tried to persuade her against it. I said all I could, she has only herself to blame," said Mrs. Dorriman, severely.
"Do not make me more ashamed of myself than I am already," he said, bitterly. "I liked Margaret, and wished to keep her with me. She is like ... but Grace. I did originally persuade him to come here, I did not care about her; and I should not have minded her unhappiness. Then I was so angry that I made life unbearable for her; and if evil comes of this can I hold myself blameless?"
He spoke with great agitation, and Mrs. Dorriman felt powerless to say a word to comfort him. She knew that there was truth in his way of putting it, and that in this way he was to blame.
"One thing more," he said, turning suddenly towards her, "and there is no reason now why you should not know it. When I asked Drayton here I did not know what I learnt afterwards from Stevens, and when he told me it was too late; I did not know that his mother died insane, and that he himself had been under restraint. I only knew this after that poor child's marriage, and what could I do?"
A cry of horror burst from Mrs. Dorriman.
"Ah, Anne! You may well be horrified, but can you not see that all this makes me absolutely hate myself? I assure you when I lie down at night, and when I unclose my eyes in the morning, this is the first miserable thought that haunts me, and will haunt me to my dying day."
"Can we do nothing?" she sobbed; "it is so dreadful to think of her so far from us and so helpless."
"If I went there, he would probably be worse, and I confess that his virulent hatred of me is the one fact that reconciles me to being unable to go. Now this man Stevens has gone, he will do more than any one, he has very great influence. I have not the health nor the strength," and, as he sank breathless into a chair, Mrs. Dorriman recognised that this was indeed only too true, and that her place was by his side.