"He doesn't dream it; and I'm going back to Pitlochry this evening."
"But I don't understand! Where is Tom, and where does he think you are?"
"Tom is with Lena," Mrs. Lakeman said, with a confident smile, "and he doesn't miss me; he is too happy. I couldn't humiliate my child in her future husband's eyes"—Margaret quailed at the word—"by letting him know that I had come to beg her life of a woman for whom he had had a passing infatuation. Now," she added, and her manner showed her alertness for practical detail. "Why won't you go to Australia?"
"I don't wish to go," Margaret answered, positively. "I don't wish to leave my mother."
"Your dear mother," Mrs. Lakeman said, with a funny little twitch. "Go home to her, Margaret; let me drive you to the station and know that you are on your way back to the farm?"
"I can't go home now," Margaret answered. "I will do as you wish about Tom, and I will not tell him that you came to me; but you must leave the rest in my hands."
"But how is he to know?" said Mrs. Lakeman, feeling in a moment that her house of cards might fall. "How is he to know that you give him up?"
"I will write to him," she said, bitterly.
"You had better telegraph at once."
Margaret felt as if these telegrams were becoming a nightmare; but, at any cost, she must get rid of Mrs. Lakeman.