"Here, then, burn the blue one," and Lady Longridge relinquished her hold of it. Thorley first tore it across, and then pushing it into the midst of the fire saw it consumed to the last morsel.
"I almost wish you had burned the other," said her mistress. "You are so unselfish you deserve the money; not that it has made me happy. Margaretta is a long time in coming, and I must go to sleep. Say 'good-night' for me. I think you have made me feel as if I wanted to forgive everybody. After all, blood is thicker than water."
Thorley heard unwonted words from the aged lips—"Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us." Then a murmur only, then sleep.
The message sent by Thorley was the means of bringing Margaretta back to the Hall, though she had never intended to return thither. But a talk with her humble little friend Nelly had so softened the heart, that when summoned she was ready to go with the messenger. On tiptoe she entered Lady Longridge's room and crept to the bedside, accompanied by Thorley, who bent over her mistress to listen.
There was no sound of breathing, no sign of life. Those murmured words had been her last, and in her hand, though the grasp on it had relaxed, lay the white will, truly the last will and testament of Dame Sophia Janet Longridge, the contents of which made Margaretta her heiress and owner of wealth far beyond what those who thought they knew had counted on her leaving behind.
The succession of shocks was too great for the girl to bear, and for the first time in her life she fainted by the side of the bed whereon lay all that remained of her whose rule had been so long and so despotic.
It was a great and unforeseen blessing that Mrs. Moffat returned that night sooner than she intended, and that on her way to Clough Cottage she stopped to leave a message for Nelly Corry. From her she heard of Margaretta's flight from the Hall and the summons back, and without hesitating, she ordered her coachman to drive straight to Northbrook, where her presence gave the greatest possible comfort.
Clasped in her kind arms, Margaretta sobbed out her story, and received the best consolation she could have, until, only a couple of days later, she found herself in those of her mother. Mr. and Mrs. Norland had taken a shorter route home than they at first planned, to avoid a district in which there had been cases of cholera; and on reaching England saw the announcement of Lady Longridge's death in the "Times," so hastened to Northbrook.
No more separations to look forward to. Mother and daughter were united, with no fear of being snatched from each other. Lady Longridge would have wondered, if with mortal eyes she could have seen honest tears falling from those of her daughter-in-law. But the account of those last words, the fact that the old lady had left her wealth to Margaretta, as if to make amends for past harshness, the memory of the sick-bed from which, by God's goodness, she had been raised to renewed health, and perhaps the knowledge that she herself might have been more forbearing, all combined to produce softened feelings in her mind. She was very glad of those words which Thorley repeated in a voice broken by sobs, "You have made me feel as if I wanted to forgive everybody," and the divinely-taught prayer which followed, and which Mrs. Hugh Norland herself said that night as she had never said it before.
No one knew what Thorley had done, or by what a noble act of self-sacrifice she had secured the inheritance for her dear Miss Meg.