Marion stole back to her room, and was sitting there quietly when in a minute or two Margaret joined her.
“Geoffrey has not come in yet,” said the girl cheerfully as she entered, “but we are not surprised. It is so foggy, Fred. Ferndale says he had hard work to get here from the station.”
Marion did not answer. Margaret put her arm round her affectionately; but Marion shrank back, and Margaret felt a little chilled.
“You are not uneasy, Mrs. Baldwin?” she said kindly, but a little more stiffly than her wont. “You know your husband is so perfectly to be depended on as a rider. He is sure to be all right.”
Marion looked up at her appealingly.
“Don’t think me cross or cold, Margaret, and don’t call me Mrs. Baldwin. I am very unhappy.”
The expression was a curious one. “Very uneasy;” “dreadfully alarmed,” or some such phrase, would have seemed more suited to the circumstances. Margaret Copley felt puzzled. After all there was something very peculiar about Marion Baldwin; she could not make her out. There she sat staring into the fire, pale but perfectly calm. Not a tear, not a symptom of nervousness; only saying in that quiet, deliberate way that she was “very unhappy.” Margaret was too young, too inexperienced, and too practically ignorant of sorrow to detect the undertone of anguish, of bitter, remorseful misery in the few cold words—“I am very unhappy.”
Marion said no more, and Margaret did not disturb her. At last the dinner gong sounded. Marion started: she had not changed her dress.
“Never mind,” said Margaret, “come down as you are. Unless you would prefer staying up here.”
“Oh, no,” said Marion, “I shall dress very quickly. I shall be ready in five minutes.”