"Oh, but Tom and I love each other," Margaret cried, in despair.
"No, dear," Mrs. Lakeman answered, impressively. "You must know the truth, for my child's life hangs on it. He does not love you—he loves her. He may have been infatuated with you during the last fortnight in which he has been parted from her. It's so like Tom," she added, with a little smile, for she found the tragic rôle a difficult one to maintain. "He has been infatuated so often."
"So often?" repeated Margaret, incredulously.
"Oh yes," Mrs. Lakeman answered, and the odd smile came to her lips. "You wouldn't believe how many times he has come to confess to me that he has made an idiot of himself. He is always falling in love, and getting engaged, and going to be married."
"I can't believe it! I won't believe it!" Margaret cried, passionately.
"It's quite true," Mrs. Lakeman answered, coolly. "Generally I have managed to conceal everything from Lena, and to get him out of his scrapes—I have known perfectly well that they were only boyish nonsense, for at the bottom of his heart, Margaret Vincent," she went on, resuming her solemnity, "he loves no one but my child; any other woman would be miserable with him. You won't give him any trouble?" she asked, insultingly; "you will give him up quietly, won't you?"
"I can't—I can't believe it."
"You would have believed it," Mrs. Lakeman said, slowly, opening her eyes wide, and this time contriving to keep the humor out of them, "if you saw her lying straight and still in her little room at Pitlochry, as she would have been now but for my presence of mind."
"What do you mean?" Margaret asked, a little scared by Mrs. Lakeman's manner.