There is a ring of such sharp hopelessness in her tone as to arrest the attention of even the preoccupied younger girl.
'You were not very lucky either, Peggy,' she says softly, rubbing her cheek caressingly to and fro against Margaret's shoulder. 'Why do I say either?' catching herself quickly up. 'As if I were not lucky—luckier than anybody; but you were unlucky. Oh, how unbearable to be unlucky in that of all things! And I was not very kind to you, was I?'
Peggy's heart swells. Her lips are passing in a trembling caress over her sister's hair.
'Not very, dear.'
'Somehow one never can think of you as wanting any one to be kind to you,' says Prue half-apologetically; 'it seems putting the cart before the horse. But,' with a leap back as sudden as an unstrung bow to her own topic, 'you have not answered my question yet! Oh, I see you do not mean to answer it! I do not know what reason you can have for not answering; but, after all, I do not mind. I ought never to have asked it. I had no business. It was not fair to him. Of course he will not get tired of me,' sitting up and clasping her hands feverishly together; 'and if he does,' with a slight hysterical laugh, 'why, I shall just die at once—go out like the snuff of a candle, and there will be an end of me, and no great loss either.'
CHAPTER XXXII
In order perhaps to give an ostensible reason for her last flying visit to the empty Manor, or more likely (since she is not much in the habit of testing the value of her actions by the world's opinion) for her own solace and consolation, Lady Betty Harborough had taken her little son with her on her return home; had taken also her daughter, though the latter's company is a matter of much less moment to her maternal heart.
The departure of the children had, at the time, been an unspeakable relief to Margaret. The recollection of the poignant pain and inconvenience she had endured last year from their questions upon John Talbot's departure, such as, 'When was he coming back?' 'Would not she like him to come and live with her always?' make her look forward with dread unutterable to a repetition of such questions, to which her new circumstances lend an agony lacked by her former ones. How shall she answer them if they ask her now whether she would like John Talbot to come back and live with her always? Shall she scream out loud?