And Hugh, folding his wasted hands together as though he were praying, looked up to her with unutterable longing in his eyes, and panted out “Margaret.”
“Margaret,” she repeated, slowly; “what Margaret do you mean, Hugh?”
“Margaret Ferrers,” he whispered. “Oh, Fay, dear Fay, if I have wronged you, forgive me. In the old times before I knew you, Margaret and I were engaged—she had promised to be my wife, and then she took back her promise. Child, I meant to tell you, I always meant to tell you, but I did not like to grieve you by what was over and gone; but I am dying—God knows I can not live in this weakness—let me see Margaret once, and bid her goodbye before I go.”
Ah, there was no doubt now! slowly, but surely, the color faded out of the sweet face.
If he had raised that helpless arm of his, and felled her to the ground, she could not have felt so stunned and bruised and giddy as she stood there, winding and unwinding the fringe of the quilt between her cold fingers, with that strange filmy look in her eyes.
She understood it now. The arrow so feebly winged had sped to the depths of that innocent heart, and what she would not have believed if an angel had told it her, she had heard from her husband’s lips.
Margaret was beloved and not she, and Fay must bear it and live.
And the fair child-face grew whiter and whiter, but she only took the nerveless hands in hers and kissed them.
“Do not fret, Hugh, it shall be as you wish,” she said, in a voice so low that he only just heard her, for a sobbing breath seemed to impede her utterance; “it shall be as you wish, my dear husband,” and then, not trusting herself to look at him, she left the room.
In the corridor she met Saville.