"If he doesn't come to-morrow, I'll make myself go to him," Margaret said, when nearly a fortnight had gone and he had not appeared; but again she hesitated. Tom Carringford might be there, and she was afraid to meet him, lest he should have heard of Mr. Garratt and be different. Then a note arrived from Sir George. He was going back to London, was starting when he wrote, and regretted that he had not been able to get to the farm again; he hoped to do so later. And so all hope in that direction vanished. She talked to her mother one day, but nothing was gained by it.
"You couldn't go to London by yourself, Margey," Mrs. Vincent said. "I was never strict in my heart as James Barton was, or as Hannah is, but I shouldn't like you to take a step of that sort out into the world without your father's approval."
"But, mother dear, every one has a life to live, and what is the use of me here? Hannah does all the farm business, and there's nothing that you want me to do. I just read and think and wait, and I don't know for what, unless it's for father's return."
"It's a feeling that comes to us all," Mrs. Vincent answered. "It's the fluttering of the bird trying to leave its nest. Better wait till your father comes and sets you on your way." Then Mrs. Vincent shut her lips—those beautiful, curved lips of hers—and said no more. All her thoughts were with the man in Australia, the man younger than herself, at whom her heart clutched, and all her hours were passed in a dream beside him till she had no energy left for the actual life about her, but let it slip by unheeded.
XIV
At last, on the afternoon of a day when Hannah was more than usually unbearable, Margaret determined to write to Miss Hunstan, asking if she might really go and see her if she went to London. This was in her own room over the porch—a little room, with a latticed window and a seat to it, and an old-fashioned cupboard let into the wall.
"I will write at once," she cried, "this very minute." It gave her some comfort even to see the address on the envelope, for she wrote that first. When the letter was finished she felt as if she had taken a step towards freedom: she put her elbows on the table, and, resting her face in her hands, tried to imagine what freedom would be like, and all that might come of it. And then, faint in the distance, as in a dream, she heard the sound of a horse's hoofs. They were coming nearer and nearer along the lane. She rose and looked out, but it was not possible to see the rider, for in the summer-time the hedges were thick and green. It was June now, and the honeysuckle and traveller's joy grew high.