“My good angel, I think,” said Randal, fervently; and again the color rushed over her face, and she smiled—as Aubrey thought he had never seen her smile before.
“Let us say a kind fairy,” said Margaret; “but will you come and see us where we are living? For here there is no quiet place to talk. Don’t go away though, Randal: Jean and Grace would like to see you—and I too.”
“Is it likely that I should want to go away?” he said; and then his face paled a little, and he added: “There is some one else you want to ask me about, Margaret. You will not need to trust to me for information at second-hand.” Then he lowered his voice, and said, bending toward her, “Glen is here.”
“Oh!” Aubrey could see the usual little exclamation prolonged almost into a cry. She grew quite pale with a dead pallor of fright. “Oh, Randal, take him away; or take me away. What shall I do?” she cried.
“Do you not wish to see him, Margaret?”
“Oh no, no, Randal! Turn round; pretend to be looking at the pictures. What shall I do? Oh, do not let him know I am here! It was that made me ill before. It was—all a mistake, Randal. Oh, I felt sure when I came out to-day something was going to happen; and then when I saw you I thought how silly I had been—that it was something good that had happened: now here is the right reading of it. Oh, Randal, you helped me before; can you not help me again now?”
“I will do anything, whatever you wish,” he said; “but, Margaret, if this is your feeling, it is scarcely fair to Glen; I think he ought to know.”
“Yes, yes,” she said, but in too great a panic to know what she was saying; “which will be the best? Should I stay here while you take him away, Randal? I could stand close to the pictures and put down my veil; or will you take me away? Oh, think, please, for I do not seem able to think! But he would be sure to know me if he saw me with you. Aubrey—oh, here is Aubrey,” she said, seizing his arm as he approached; “he will take me; and, Randal, come—will you come to-night?”
“Where?” said Randal, putting out his hand to detain her. Aubrey, with a somewhat surly nod of recognition which the other was scarcely aware of, gave him the address; and almost dragged through the crowd by Margaret’s eagerness, went away with her, not ill-pleased, notwithstanding this disagreeable evidence of some mystery he did not understand, to carry her off from the man she had smiled upon so brightly. She had dropped her veil, which was half crape, over her face, and, holding her head down and clinging to his arm, drew him through the crowd.
“Are you ill?” he said; “what is the matter, Margaret?” But she made no reply; and it was only when he had found Mrs. Bellingham’s hired carriage, which was waiting outside, and put her into it, that she seemed to be able to speak. Even then she would not let him go.