With the feelings that are beyond expression they held each other thus.
Finally Margaret said in a low voice:—
"Rob comes day after to-morrow; he will be at the Inn."
Isabelle rose from the couch with a sudden revulsion in her heart. After all, was this calm, this peace that she had admired in Margaret and longed to possess herself, this Something which she had achieved and which seemed to put her beyond and above ordinary women, nothing but the woman's satisfaction in love, whose lover is seeking her? She found herself almost despising Margaret unreasonably. Some man! That created the firmament of women's heaven, with its sun and its moon and its stars. Remembered caresses and expected joys,—the woman's bliss of yielding to her chosen master,—was that all!
Margaret, following Isabelle with her eyes, seemed to comprehend this sudden change in her heart. But she merely remarked:—
"He cannot stay long,—only a couple of days, I believe."
"Tell me," Isabelle demanded sharply, as if she had the right to know, must know, "what are you going to do?"
Margaret closed her eyes, and after a time of utter stillness she said in a voice beseechingly tender:—
"Dear, perhaps I do not know, yet."
Her eyes were wet with unaccustomed tears. Stretching a hand to Isabelle and smiling again, she murmured:—
"Whatever it will be, you must trust that it will be right for me and for him,—you must know that."