[AN OBDURATE DAUGHTER].
Margaret had a bad quarter of an hour that afternoon, when the lawn-tennis was over. She felt no misgiving as she went up-stairs. The danger had been got over, she thought, on Sunday morning, when her mother started off in full career upon the other scent. What a happy circumstance was Uncle Joseph's engagement! She positively loved Rosa now for having accepted him. And Rose herself was so dear a girl, the very nicest aunt whom Joseph could have found her; binding him closer to them, if that were possible, instead of estranging him as another might have done. It was therefore an altogether unexpected shock when her mother, following her into her room, closed and fastened the door, and in a voice which shook with anger, demanded of her what she meant.
"Mean, mother dear? I do not understand you."
"You know perfectly what I mean, you double, deceitful girl!"
Margaret understood now. The tempest, delayed for a while, was upon her. She hung her head, and bent like a willow before the blast.
"You may well cower," her mother cried, pacing up and down. Her spirit boiled, to think that she had been so duped--she, the wise one, the manager--and she could neither sit nor stand still, in her vehement indignation.
"That I should be mother of a girl whose name can be mentioned as I have heard you spoken of this day! Shameless, deceitful, unwomanly--oh!" Words failed her as she stood with clenched hands and eyes of wrath, which might have turned the other to stone, had she dared look up and meet them.
"Say that it is not true! Tell me that woman has lied!--that there was no man with you on the island but your uncle and her detestable son!
"You do not answer me? Speak! Let me hear that there is not a word of truth in her horrid insinuations. I will even say that I am not sorry you would have none of such a woman's son;" and here her voice veered round into the minor key. "I shall not press you to think of him. His mother is no better than a common scold. Do you hear me, Margaret?
"You will not speak? Is it that you cannot deny the scandalous things she has been saying?--that you could plan a surreptitious meeting, upon a lonely island, with a man?