She was with him because, poor soul, she had no other home which she would enter. He took her there because he hoped to overcome her half-sick fancies about Castle Brand, and to send her forth to take possession of the fortune which was, to all intents and purposes, her own.
For a few days the guest kept her room, and her own counsel, but at the end of a week she came out to the parlor, with a grave, firm face, and declared herself quite recovered.
The doctor was sitting in his arm-chair, by a cozy, crackling fire, and was absently trotting a bouncing baby of ten months on his knee, while he anxiously pored over a huge medical book at his elbow; and Mrs. Gay was stitching a cambric frill in her easy chair opposite, and watching the clumsy nurse with a face of long-suffering patience.
And Margaret, gliding into the room in her thread-bare black robes, and, with a gentle yet resolute face, seemed like the apparition of some tragedy queen coming upon the stage where the farce was still enacting.
"Ah! Good-evening, good-evening, my dear Miss Walsingham!" cried the doctor, jumping up and dumping the baby unceremoniously into his wife's lap. "Take this chair and this footstool. Are you better?"
"Thanks. I am well now," said Margaret, quietly seating herself. "And I would like to confer with you and Mr. Davenport upon my future prospects."
"Never mind 'em now, Miss Margaret," said the doctor, kindly. "You are far from strong yet."
"Please summon Mr. Davenport," returned she.
"Stubborn as ever, my dear," grumbled he, laughing. "You're pretty quiet about it, but you will have your way."
"Yes, I must have my way," said Margaret, with a sad smile.