XXIX
Margaret sometimes wondered how she lived through that day. Mr. Farley sent her a little note releasing her from her engagement, but saying that if at any time she wanted to come back he would gladly take her on again. Margaret felt it to be a kindly letter. Oddly enough, too, a note came from the agency in the Strand, asking her to call the next day. "I will," she thought, "if I have had a letter from my mother." At the bottom of her heart there was some uneasiness, and once or twice it occurred to her that she would go back to Chidhurst and ask a neighbor to take her in, but the inhabitants of Woodside Farm had always kept their affairs to themselves, and she did not want to give occasion for gossip in the village. She read her mother's letter again. No, there was nothing in it to be alarmed about; it was only her own miserable state of mind. She was desperate, maddened, ashamed every time she remembered Tom and his kisses, and her own protestations to him. She couldn't bear to think that he was with Lena—Lena who would never love him as she did. Somehow, too, at the bottom of her heart, she felt that there was trickery in the whole business. She didn't know how or where, only that Mrs. Lakeman's manner had not been very real; but everything in the world had become unreal and torturing. There was only one thing left that could comfort her—home and mother. She hungered and thirsted for her home. She wanted to see her mother's face, to sit on the arm of her chair in the living-room, to talk to her, even to hear Hannah scold. She wanted to go up to the wood and to think out the nightmare of the last few hours in her cathedral. She imagined the great rest of arriving at Haslemere Station, of walking the long six miles to Woodside Farm, of entering the porch and finding her mother sitting there. Oh! but it was no good; Hannah would not allow her to enter. Hannah was a firm woman who kept her word, and would think that she proved her religion by being cruel. As the day went on and no telegram came from Tom, the latent hope she had unconsciously cherished vanished. It was all true, then, and he really cared for Lena.
"I'm glad mother didn't know," she thought; "it would have made her so unhappy when this ending came; and I couldn't have borne Hannah's gibes." She longed desperately for some one to speak to, but there was no one; besides, her lips were closed; she had promised to be silent. Suddenly, she remembered Miss Hunstan; she would write to her. But no, it was impossible; she had left Bayreuth and the new address had not yet come. "And I don't know what to do, or what to say to father," she thought. "Oh, it's maddening. If it were a case of life and death I could bear it, but this is some trick, I know it—it is a case of sham life and death."
Late in the afternoon Sir George Stringer called. He entered awkwardly, as if he were afraid of meeting her; but the moment he saw her face he knew that something was the matter, and all his self-consciousness vanished.
"I told you I should come again," he said; "there is no reason why I shouldn't look after my old friend's girl, is there?"
"No, none," she answered, hardly able to collect her senses sufficiently to talk to him.
He looked at her sharply. "Something's the matter," he said; "you have been crying?"
"Oh no—yes, I have been crying; I am very homesick." He put his hand on hers as her father might have done.