This Randal took as a hint that he had at present “taken up his time” and hers long enough, and he went away horribly disappointed, tingling with pain as he had done with pleasure and excitement when he came, yet, but for the disappointment, not so entirely cast down as he might have been. Margaret’s determined flight, her abandonment of the place where Rob Glen was, even though that place was London—large enough, it might be supposed, to permit two strangers to inhabit it at the same time without meeting—and her evident horror of the engagement between them, made Randal’s spirits rise more than his disappointment subdued them. This bondage once cleared away, and Rob Glen dropped back again into the regions to which he belonged, who could tell what might happen?
There was but one thing that abode a prominent alarm in his mind, after the first sting of disappointment was over, and that was “the other fellow,” who lied so calmly on Margaret’s behalf. Was he in her confidence too? Randal felt that to possess her confidence as he himself did was as great a privilege as any man could have; but somehow, curiously enough, it did not seem to him either so sacred or so seemly that Aubrey should possess it too. He felt that the suggestion of this wounded him for Margaret’s sake. She ought not to take a young man into her confidence—it was not quite delicate, quite like the perfection of Margaret. This was the only thing that really and permanently troubled him as he went away.
And he had not been long back in his hotel when, a little before the dinner hour at which he expected Rob to appear, the chief hero of the whole entanglement suddenly made his appearance in a very evident state of excitement. Rob was pale, his eyes wild with anxiety, his hair hanging dishevelled over his forehead, as he wiped it with his handkerchief, and his coat covered with dust. He looked eagerly round, though he did not know himself what he expected to see. He waited till the door was closed, and then he said hurriedly, “Burnside, I have seen Margaret; I saw her coming out of the Academy when I met you this morning. I have been rushing about half over London after her, and I cannot find her. Have you heard anything or seen anything, or can you guess where she is likely to be?”
“Sit down, Glen.”
“Sit down!—that is no answer. I don’t feel as if I could sit down until I have spoken to her. Tell me where you think she can be.”
“Glen, I want to speak to you. I have something to say to you. They are gone, or going away, that much I heard. I saw Mrs. Bellingham this afternoon, and she told me that her sister was ill again, and that they were off at once. She found that London did not agree with her.”
“Ill again?—gone away!” said Rob, hoarsely: then he threw down his hat upon the table with an exclamation of annoyance and pain. “It is not treating me fairly. I ought to see her,” he cried, and threw himself, weary and angry, upon the nearest chair.
“I think so too,” said Randal, seriously. “I think you ought to see her. I don’t want to hurt your feelings, Glen; but I think you should see her, and make her tell you candidly the state of affairs.”
“What do you mean by the state of affairs? If it is that her family are opposed to the existence of any tie between her and me, that is no new discovery. I know that, and she knows that I know it.”
“That was not all I meant, Glen—that is bad enough. You know my opinion. As a man of honor, I think you have a duty even to the family; but this is different. She is not happy. I think you ought to have a full explanation, and—set things on a right footing.”