"For joy or grief, for hope or fear, For all hereafter, as for here, In peace or strife, in storm or shine." ANON.
Edith went about on tip-toe, and checked Sholto in all loud speaking that next morning, as if any sudden noise would interrupt the conference that was taking place in the drawing-room. Two o'clock came; and they still sate there with closed doors. Then there was a man's footstep running down stairs; and Edith peeped out of the drawing-room.
"Well, Henry?" said she, with a look of interrogation.
"Well!" said he, rather shortly.
"Come in to lunch!"
"No, thank you, I can't. I've lost too much time here already."
"Then it's not all settled?" said Edith, despondingly.
"No! not at all. It never will be settled, if the 'it' is what I conjecture you mean. That will never be, Edith, so give up thinking about it."
"But it would be so nice for us all," pleaded Edith. "I should always feel comfortable about the children, if I had Margaret settled down near to me. As it is, I am always afraid of her going off to Cadiz."
"I will try, when I marry, to look out for a young lady who has a knowledge of the management of children. That is all I can do. Miss Hale will not have me. And I shall not ask her."
"Then what have you been talking about?"
"A thousand things you would not understand: Investments, and leases, and value of land."
"Oh, go away if that's all. You and she will be unbearably stupid, if you've been talking all this time about such weary things."
"Very well. I'm coming again to-morrow, and bringing Mr. Thornton with me, to have some more talk with Miss Hale."
"Mr. Thornton! What has he to do with it?"
"He is Miss Hale's tenant," said Mr. Lennox, turning away. "And he wishes to give up his lease."
"Oh! very well. I can't understand details, so don't give them me."
"The only detail I want you to understand is, to let us have the back drawing-room undisturbed, as it was to-day. In general, the children and servants are so in and out, that I can never get any business satisfactorily explained; and the arrangements we have to make to-morrow are of importance."
No one ever knew why Mr. Lennox did not keep to his appointment on the following day. Mr. Thornton came true to his time; and after keeping him waiting for nearly an hour, Margaret came in looking very white and anxious.
She began hurriedly:
"I am so sorry Mr. Lennox is not here,--he could have done it so much better than I can. He is my adviser in this"----
"I am sorry that I came, if it troubles you. Shall I go to Mr. Lennox's chambers and try and find him?"
"No, thank you. I wanted to tell you, how grieved I was to find that I am to lose you as a tenant. But, Mr. Lennox says, things are sure to brighten"----
"Mr. Lennox knows little about it," said Mr. Thornton quietly. "Happy and fortunate in all a man cares for, he does not understand what it is to find oneself no longer young--yet thrown back to the starting-point which requires the hopeful energy of youth--to feel one half of life gone, and nothing done--nothing remaining of wasted opportunity, but the bitter recollection that it has been. Miss Hale, would rather not hear Mr. Lennox's opinion of my affairs. Those who are happy and successful themselves are too apt to make light of the misfortunes of others."
"You are unjust," said Margaret, gently. "Mr. Lennox has only spoken of the great probability which he believes there to be of your redeeming--your more than redeeming what you have lost--don't speak till I have ended--pray don't." And collecting herself once more, she went on rapidly turning over some law papers, and statement of accounts in a trembling hurried manner. "Oh! here it is! and--he drew me out a proposal--I wish he was here to explain it--showing that if you would take some money of mine, eighteen hundred and fifty-seven pounds, lying just at this moment unused in the bank, and bringing me in only two and a half per cent.--you could pay me much better interest, and might go on working Marlborough Mills." Her voice had cleared itself and become more steady. Mr. Thornton did not speak, and she went on looking for some paper on which were written down the proposals for security; for she was most anxious to have it all looked upon in the light of a mere business arrangement, in which the principal advantage would be on her side. While she sought for this paper, her very heart-pulse was arrested by the tone in which Mr. Thornton spoke. His voice was hoarse, and trembling with tender passion, as he said:--
"Margaret!"
For an instant she looked up; and then sought to veil her luminous eyes by dropping her forehead on her hands. Again, stepping nearer, he besought her with another tremulous eager call upon her name.
"Margaret!"
Still lower went the head; more closely hidden was the face, almost resting on the table before her. He came close to her. He knelt by her side, to bring his face to a level with her ear; and whispered--panted out the words:--
"Take care.--If you do not speak--I shall claim you as my own in some strange presumptuous way.--Send me away at once, if I must go;--Margaret!--"
At that third call she turned her face, still covered with her small white hands, towards him, and laid it on his shoulder, even hiding it there; and it was too delicious to feel her soft cheek against his, for him to wish to see either deep blushes or loving eyes. He clasped her close. But they both kept silence. At length she murmured in a broken voice:
"Oh, Mr. Thornton, I am not good enough!"
"Not good enough! Don't mock my own deep feeling of unworthiness."
After a minute or two he gently disengaged her hands from her face, and laid her arms as they had once before been placed to protect him from the rioters.
"Do you remember, love?" he murmured. "And how I requited you with my insolence the next day?"
"I remember how wrongly I spoke to you,--that is all."
"Look here! Lift up your head. I have something to show you!" She slowly faced him, glowing with beautiful shame.
"Do you know these roses?" he said, drawing out his pocket-book, in which were treasured up some dead flowers.
"No!" she replied, with innocent curiosity. "Did I give them to you?"
"No! Vanity; you did not. You may have worn sister roses very probably."
She looked at them, wondering for a minute, then she smiled a little as she said--
"They are from Helstone, are they not? I know the deep indentations round the leaves. Oh! have you been there? When were you there?"
"I wanted to see the place where Margaret grew to what she is, even at the worst time of all, when I had no hope of ever calling her mine. I went there on my return from Havre."
"You must give them to me," she said, trying to take them out of his hand with gentle violence.
"Very well. Only you must pay me for them!"
"How shall I ever tell Aunt Shaw?" she whispered, after some time of delicious silence.
"Let me speak to her."
"Oh, no! I owe to her,--but what will she say?"
"I can guess. Her first exclamation will be, 'That man!'"
"Hush!" said Margaret, "or I shall try and show you your mother's indignant tones as she says, 'That woman!'"

Edith went about on tip-toe, and quietened Sholto that next morning, as if any sudden noise would interrupt the conference that was taking place in the drawing-room. Two o'clock came; and they still sat there with closed doors. Then there was a man's footstep running downstairs; and Edith peeped out of her room.
'Well, Henry?' said she.
'Well!' said he, rather shortly.
'Come in to lunch!'
'No, thank you, I can't. I've lost too much time here already.'
'Then it's not all settled,' said Edith despondingly.
'No! It never will be settled, if the "it" is what I think you mean. That will never be, Edith, so give up thinking about it.'
'But it would be so nice for us all,' pleaded Edith. 'I should always feel comfortable about the children, if I had Margaret settled near me. I am afraid of her going off to Cadiz.'
'I will try, when I marry, to look out for a young lady who has knowledge of the management of children. That is all I can do. Miss Hale would not have me. And I shall not ask her.'
'Then what have you been talking about?'
'A thousand things you would not understand: investments, and leases, and value of land.'
'Oh, go away, if that's all - such weary things.'
'Very well. I'm coming again tomorrow, and bringing Mr. Thornton with me, to have some more talk with Miss Hale.'
'Mr. Thornton! What has he to do with it?'
'He is Miss Hale's tenant,' said Mr. Lennox, turning away. 'And he wishes to give up his lease.'
'Oh! very well. I can't understand details, so don't give them me.'
'The only detail I want you to understand is, to let us have the back drawing-room undisturbed, as it was today, with nobody coming in or out. The arrangements we have to make tomorrow are important.'
No one ever knew why Mr. Lennox did not keep his appointment on the following day. Mr. Thornton came true to his time; and, after keeping him waiting for nearly an hour, Margaret came in looking very white and anxious.
She began hurriedly:
'I am so sorry Mr. Lennox is not here - he could have done it so much better than I can. He is my adviser in this.'
'I am sorry that I came, if it troubles you. Shall I go to Mr. Lennox's chambers and try and find him?'
'No, thank you. I wanted to tell you how grieved I was to find that I am to lose you as a tenant. But, Mr. Lennox says, things are sure to brighten-'
'Mr. Lennox knows little about it,' said Mr. Thornton quietly. 'Happy and fortunate as he is, he does not understand what it is to find oneself no longer young - yet thrown back to the starting-point which requires the hopeful energy of youth; to feel half of life gone, and nothing done - nothing remaining of wasted opportunity, but the bitter recollection that it has passed. Miss Hale, I would rather not hear Mr. Lennox's opinion of my affairs. Those who are happy and successful themselves are too apt to make light of the misfortunes of others.'
'You are unjust,' said Margaret, gently. 'Mr. Lennox has only spoken of the great probability which he believes there to be of your redeeming - your more than redeeming what you have lost - pray don't speak till I have ended!'
Collecting herself, she went on rapidly turning over some law papers and accounts in a trembling hurried manner. 'Oh! here it is! He drew me out a proposal - I wish he was here to explain it - showing that if you would take some money of mine, eighteen thousand and fifty-seven pounds, lying just at this moment unused in the bank, and bringing me in only two and a half per cent - you could pay me much better interest, and might go on working Marlborough Mills.' Her voice had cleared itself and become more steady.
Mr. Thornton did not speak, and she went on looking for a paper on which were written down the proposals for security; for she was most anxious to have it all looked upon in the light of a mere business arrangement, in which the principal advantage would be on her side.
While she sought for this paper, her very heart-pulse was arrested by the tone in which Mr. Thornton spoke. His voice was hoarse, and trembling with tender passion, as he said-
'Margaret!'
For an instant she looked up; and then sought to veil her luminous eyes by dropping her forehead on her hands. Again, stepping nearer, he besought her with another tremulous eager call.
'Margaret!'
Still lower went the head; more closely hidden was the face, bending almost to the table. He knelt by her side, to bring his face to a level with her ear; and whispered:
'Take care. - If you do not speak - I shall claim you as my own in some strange presumptuous way. - Send me away at once, if I must go. - Margaret!'
At that third call she turned her face, still covered with her small white hands, towards him, and laid it on his shoulder, hiding it even there; and it was too delicious to feel her soft cheek against his, for him to wish to see either deep blushes or loving eyes. He clasped her close. But they both kept silence. At length she murmured in a broken voice:
'Oh, Mr. Thornton, I am not good enough!'
'Not good enough! Don't mock my own deep feeling of unworthiness.'
After a minute or two, he gently disengaged her hands from her face, and laid her arms as they had once before been placed to protect him from the rioters.
'Do you remember, love?' he murmured. 'And how I requited you with my insolence the next day?'
'I remember how wrongly I spoke to you - that is all.'
'Look here! Lift up your head. I have something to show you!' She slowly faced him, glowing with beautiful shame.
'Do you know these roses?' he said, drawing out his pocket-book, in which were treasured up some dead flowers.
'Did I give them to you?'
'No! Vanity; you did not. You may have worn sister roses very probably.'
She looked at them, wondering; then smiled as she said, 'They are from Helstone, are they not? I know the deep indentations round the leaves. Oh! have you been there?'
'I wanted to see the place where Margaret grew to what she is, even at the worst time of all, when I had no hope of ever calling her mine. I went there on my return from Havre.'
'You must give them to me,' she said, trying to take them out of his hand with gentle violence.
'Very well. Only you must pay me for them!'
'How shall I ever tell Aunt Shaw?' she whispered, after some time of delicious silence.
'Let me speak to her.'
'Oh, no! I owe it to her - but what will she say?'
'I can guess. Her first exclamation will be, "That man!"'
'Hush!' said Margaret, 'or I shall try and show you your mother's indignant tones as she says, "That woman!"'


"My own, my father's friend! I cannot part with thee! I ne'er have shown, thou ne'er hast known, How dear thou art to me." ANON.
The elements of the dinner-parties which Mrs. Lennox gave, were these; her friends contributed the beauty, Captain Lennox the easy knowledge of the subjects of the day; and Mr. Henry Lennox, and the sprinkling of rising men who were received as his friends, brought the wit, the cleverness, the keen and extensive knowledge of which they knew well enough how to avail themselves without seeming pedantic, or burdening the rapid flow of conversation.
These dinners were delightful; but even here Margaret's dissatisfaction found her out. Every talent, every feeling, every acquirement; nay, even every tendency towards virtue, was used up as materials for fireworks; the hidden, sacred fire, exhausted itself in sparkle and crackle. They talked about art in a merely sensuous way, dwelling on outside effects, instead of allowing themselves to learn what it has to teach. They lashed themselves up into an enthusiasm about high subjects in company, and never thought about them when they were alone; they squandered their capabilities of appreciation into a mere flow of appropriate words. One day, after the gentlemen had come up into the drawing-room, Mr. Lennox drew near to Margaret, and addressed her in almost the first voluntary words he had spoken to her since she had returned to live in Harley Street.
"You did not look pleased at what Shirley was saying at dinner."
"Didn't I? My face must be very expressive," replied Margaret.
"It always was. It has not lost the trick of being eloquent."
"I did not like," said Margaret, hastily, "his way of advocating what he knew to be wrong--so glaringly wrong--even in jest."
"But it was very clever. How every word told! Did you remember the happy epithets?"
"Yes."
"And despise them, you would like to add. Pray don't scruple, though he is my friend."
"There! that is the exact tone in you, that"--she stopped short.
He listened for a moment to see if she would finish her sentence; but she only reddened, and turned away; before she did so, however, she heard him say, in a very low, clear voice,--
"If my tones, or modes of thought, are what you dislike, will you do me the justice to tell me so, and so give me the chance of learning to please you."
All these weeks there was no intelligence of Mr. Bell's going to Milton. He had spoken of it at Helstone as of a journey which he might have to take in a very short time from then; but he must have transacted his business by writing. Margaret thought, ere now, and she knew that if he could, he would avoid going to a place which he disliked, and moreover would little understand the secret importance which she affixed to the explanation that could only be given by word of mouth. She knew that he would feel that it was necessary that it should be done; but whether in summer, autumn, or winter, it would signify very little. It was now August, and there had been no mention of the Spanish journey to which he had alluded to Edith, and Margaret tried to reconcile herself to the fading away of this illusion.
But one morning she received a letter, saying that next week he meant to come up to town; he wanted to see her about a plan which he had in his head; and, moreover, he intended to treat himself to a little doctoring, as he had begun to come round to her opinion, that it would be pleasanter to think that his health was more in fault than he, when he found himself irritable and cross. There was altogether a tone of forced cheerfulness in the letter, as Margaret noticed afterwards; but at the time her attention was taken up by Edith's exclamations.
"Coming up to town! Oh dear! and I am so worn out by the heat that I don't believe I have strength enough in me for another dinner. Besides, everybody has left but our dear stupid selves, who can't settle where to go to. There would be nobody to meet him."
"I'm sure he would much rather come and dine with us quite alone than with the most agreeable strangers you could pick up. Besides, if he is not well he won't wish for invitations. I am glad he has owned it at last. I was sure he was ill from the whole tone of his letters, and yet he would not answer me when I asked him, and I had no third person to whom I could apply for news."
"Oh! he is not very ill, or he would not think of Spain."
"He never mentions Spain."
"No! but his plan that is to be proposed evidently relates to that. But would you really go in such weather as this?"
"Oh, it will get cooler every day. Yes! Think of it. I am only afraid I have thought and wished too much--in that absorbing wilful way which is sure to be disappointed--or else gratified, to the letter, while in the spirit it gives no pleasure."
"But that's superstitious, I'm sure, Margaret."
"No, I don't think it is. Only it ought to warn me, and check me from giving way to such passionate wishes. It is a sort of 'Give me children, or else I die.' I'm afraid my cry is, 'Let me go to Cadiz, or else I die.'"
"My dear Margaret! You'll be persuaded to stay there; and then what shall I do? Oh! I wish I could find somebody for you to marry here, that I could be sure of you!"
"I shall never marry."
"Nonsense, and double nonsense! Why, as Sholto says, you're such an attraction to the house, that he knows ever so many men who will be glad to visit here next year for your sake."
Margaret drew herself up haughtily. "Do you know, Edith, I sometimes think your Corfu life has taught you----"
"Well!"
"Just a shade or two of coarseness."
Edith began to sob so bitterly, and to declare so vehemently that Margaret had lost all love for her, and no longer looked upon her as a friend, that Margaret came to think that she had expressed too harsh an opinion for the relief of her own wounded pride, and ended by being Edith's slave for the rest of the day; while that little lady, overcome by wounded feeling, lay like a victim on the sofa, heaving occasionally a profound sigh, till at last she fell asleep.
Mr. Bell did not make his appearance even on the day to which he had for a second time deferred his visit. The next morning there came a letter from Wallis, his servant, stating that his master had not been feeling well for some time, which had been the true reason of his putting off his journey; and that at the very time when he should have set out for London, he had been seized with an apoplectic fit; it was, indeed, Wallis added, the opinion of the medical men--that he could not survive the night; and more than probable, that by the time Miss Hale received this letter his poor master would be no more.
Margaret received this letter at breakfast-time, and turned very pale as she read it; then, silently putting into Edith's hands, she left the room.
Edith was terribly shocked as she read it, and cried in a sobbing, frightened, childish way, much to her husband's distress. Mrs. Shaw was breakfasting in her own room, and upon him devolved the task of reconciling his wife to the near contact into which she seemed to be brought with death, for the first time that she could remember in her life. Here was a man who was to have dined with them to-day lying dead or dying instead! It was some time before she could think of Margaret. Then she started up, and followed her upstairs into her room. Dixon was packing up a few toilette articles, and Margaret was hastily putting on her bonnet, shedding tears all the time, and her hands trembling so that she could hardly tie the strings.
"Oh, dear Margaret! how shocking! What are you doing? Are you going out? Sholto would telegraph or do anything you like."
"I am going to Oxford. There is a train in half-an-hour. Dixon has offered to go with me, but I could have gone by myself. I must see him again. Besides, he may be better, and want some care. He has been like a father to me. Don't stop me, Edith."
"But I must. Mamma won't like it at all. Come and ask her about it, Margaret. You don't know where you're going. I should not mind if he had a house of his own; but in his Fellow's rooms! Come to mamma, and do ask her before you go. It will not take a minute."
Margaret yielded, and lost her train. In the suddenness of the event, Mrs. Shaw became bewildered and hysterical, and so the precious time slipped by. But there was another train in a couple of hours; and after various discussions on propriety and impropriety, it was decided that Captain Lennox should accompany Margaret, as the one thing to which she was constant was her resolution to go, alone or otherwise, by the next train, whatever might be said of the propriety or impropriety of the step. Her father's friend, her own friend, was lying at the point of death; and the thought of this came upon her with such vividness, that she was surprised herself at the firmness with which she asserted something of her right to independence of action; and five minutes before the time of starting, she found herself sitting in a railway carriage opposite to Captain Lennox. It was always a comfort to her to think that she had gone, though it was only to hear that he had died in the night. She saw the rooms that he had occupied, and associated them ever after most fondly in her memory with the idea of her father, and his one cherished and faithful friend.
They had promised Edith before starting, that if all had ended as they feared, they would return to dinner; so that long, lingering look around the room in which her father had died, had to be interrupted, and a quiet farewell taken of the kind old face that had so often come out with pleasant words, and merry quips and cranks.
Captain Lennox fell asleep on their journey home; and Margaret could cry at leisure, and bethink her of this fatal year, and all the woes it had brought to her. No sooner was she fully aware of one loss than another came--not to supersede her grief for the one before, but to re-open wounds and feelings scarcely healed. But at the sound of the tender voices of her aunt and Edith, of merry little Sholto's glee at her arrival, and at the sight of the well-lighted rooms, with their mistress, pretty in her paleness and her eager sorrowful interest, Margaret roused herself from her heavy trance of almost superstitious hopelessness, and began to feel that even around her joy and gladness might gather. She had Edith's place on the sofa; Sholto was taught to carry Aunt Margaret's cup of tea very carefully to her; and by the time she went up to dress, she could thank God for having spared her dear old friend a long or a painful illness.
But when night came-solemn night, and all the house was quiet, Margaret still sate watching the beauty of a London sky at such an hour, on such a summer evening; the faint pink reflection of earthly lights on the soft clouds that float tranquilly into the white moonlight, out of the warm gloom which lies motionless around the horizon. Margaret's room had been the day nursery of her childhood, just when it merged into girlhood, and when the feelings and conscience had been first awakened into full activity. On some such night as this she remembered promising to herself to live as brave and noble a life as any heroine she ever read or heard of in romance, a life sans peur et sans reproche; it had seemed to her then that she had only to will, and such a life would be accomplished. And now she had learnt that not only to will, but also to pray, was a necessary condition in the truly heroic. Trusting to herself, she had fallen. It was a just consequence of her sin, that all excuses for it, all temptation to it, should remain for ever unknown to the person in whose opinion it had sunk her lowest. She stood face to face at last with her sin. She knew it for what it was; Mr. Bell's kindly sophistry that nearly all men were guilty of equivocal actions, and that the motive ennobled the evil, had never had much real weight with her. Her own first thought of how, if she had known all, she might have fearlessly told the truth, seemed low and poor. Nay, even now, her anxiety to have her character for truth partially excused in Mr. Thornton's eyes, as Mr. Bell had promised to do, was a very small and petty consideration, now that she was afresh taught by death what life should be. If all the world spoke, acted, or kept silence with intent to deceive,-if dearest interests were at stake, and dearest lives in peril,-if no one should ever know of her truth or her falsehood to measure out their honour or contempt for her by, straight alone where she stood, in the presence of God, she prayed that she might have strength to speak and act the truth for evermore.

The elements of Mrs. Lennox's dinner-parties were these; her friends contributed the beauty, Captain Lennox the easy knowledge of the subjects of the day, and Mr. Henry Lennox and his friends brought the wit and cleverness to the conversation.
These dinners were delightful; but even here Margaret felt dissatisfied. Every talent, every feeling, even every tendency towards virtue was used as materials for fireworks; the hidden, sacred fire exhausted itself in sparkle and crackle. They talked about art in a merely sensuous way, dwelling on effects, instead of allowing themselves to learn what it has to teach. They lashed themselves up into enthusiasm about high subjects in company, and never thought about them when they were alone; they squandered their capabilities of appreciation into a mere flow of appropriate words.
One day, after the gentlemen had come into the drawing-room, Mr. Lennox drew near to Margaret.
'You did not look pleased at what Shirley was saying at dinner.'
'Didn't I? My face must be very expressive,' replied Margaret.
'It always was.'
'I did not like,' said Margaret, hastily, 'his way of advocating what he knew to be wrong, even in jest.'
'But it was very clever. Do you remember the happy epithets?'
'Yes.'
'And you despise them, you would like to add. Pray don't scruple, though he is my friend.'
'There! that is the exact tone in you, that-' She stopped short.
He waited to see if she would finish her sentence; but she only reddened, and turned away. He said in a very low, clear voice:
'If my tones, or modes of thought, are what you dislike, will you tell me so, and give me the chance of learning to please you?'
All these weeks there was no news of Mr. Bell's going to Milton. He must have transacted his business there by writing, Margaret thought. She knew that if he could, he would avoid going to a place which he disliked, and would not understand the secret importance which she affixed to the explanation being given by word of mouth. It was now August, and he had not mentioned the Spanish journey; so Margaret tried to reconcile herself to the fading away of this illusion.
But one morning she received a letter, saying that next week he meant to come up to town; he wanted to see her about a plan which he had; and to treat himself to a little doctoring, as he had begun to think that perhaps his health was more in fault than he, when he found himself irritable and cross. There was a tone of forced cheerfulness in the letter, as Margaret noticed afterwards; but at the time her attention was taken up by Edith's exclamations.
'Coming up to town! Oh, dear! and I am so worn out by the heat that I don't believe I have strength for another dinner. Besides, everybody has left town.'
'I'm sure Mr. Bell would much rather dine with us alone than with the most agreeable strangers, especially if he is not well. I am glad he has owned it at last. I was sure he was ill, and yet he would not answer me when I asked him.'
'Oh! he is not very ill, or he would not think of Spain.'
'He never mentions Spain.'
'No! but his plan must relate to that. Dear Margaret! You'll be persuaded to stay there; and then what shall I do? Oh! I wish I could find somebody for you to marry here!'
'I shall never marry.'
'Nonsense! Why, Cosmo says that he knows ever so many men who will be glad to visit here for your sake.'
Margaret drew herself up haughtily. 'Do you know, Edith, I sometimes think your Corfu life has taught you just a shade of coarseness.'
Edith began to sob so bitterly, and to declare so vehemently that Margaret had lost all love for her, that Margaret came to think that she had been too harsh in relieving her own wounded pride; and ended by being Edith's slave for the rest of the day, while that little lady lay like a victim on the sofa.
Mr. Bell did not appear. There came a letter from Wallis, his servant, stating that his master had not been feeling well for some time, so had put off his journey; and that at the very time when he should have set out for London, he had been seized with an apoplectic fit. Wallis added the opinion of the medical men - that Mr. Bell could not survive the night; and that probably by the time Miss Hale received this letter his poor master would be no more.
Margaret received the letter at breakfast-time, and turned very pale as she read it. Silently putting it into Edith's hands, she left the room.
Edith was terribly shocked, and cried in a sobbing, frightened, childish way, much to her husband's distress. It was the first time his wife had been brought into near contact with death. Here was a man who was to have dined with them today, lying dead or dying! It was some time before Edith could think of Margaret. When she went up to her room, Dixon was packing, and Margaret was hastily putting on her bonnet, her hands trembling so that she could hardly tie the strings.
'Oh, dear Margaret! how shocking! Are you going out? Cosmo would telegraph or do anything you like.'
'I am going to Oxford. There is a train in half-an-hour. Dixon has offered to go with me. I must see Mr. Bell again. Besides, he may be better, and want some care. He has been like a father to me. Don't stop me, Edith.'
'But Mamma won't like it. Come and ask her about it, Margaret. You don't know where you're going. In his Fellow's rooms! Come to mamma, and do ask her.'
Margaret yielded, and missed her train. Mrs. Shaw became bewildered and hysterical, and precious time slipped by. But there was another train in a couple of hours; and after various discussions on propriety, it was decided that Captain Lennox should accompany Margaret by the next train. Her father's friend, her own friend, was lying at the point of death; and this thought made her assert firmly her right to independence of action.
It was always a comfort to her to think that she had gone, though it was only to hear that he had died in the night. She saw the rooms that he had occupied, and associated them ever after most fondly in her memory with the idea of her father, and his cherished and faithful friend.
They had promised Edith that if all had ended as they feared, they would return to dinner; so that Margaret's lingering look around the room, in which her father had died, had to be interrupted, and a quiet farewell taken of the kind old face.
Captain Lennox fell asleep on their journey home; and Margaret could cry at leisure, and bethink her of this fatal year, and all its woes. One grief had come after another, re-opening wounds and feelings scarcely healed.
But at the sound of the tender voices of her aunt and Edith, and merry little Sholto's glee at her arrival, Margaret roused herself from her heavy trance. She had Edith's place on the sofa; Sholto was taught to carry aunt Margaret's cup of tea very carefully to her; and by the time she went up to dress, she could thank God for having spared her dear old friend a long or painful illness.
When solemn night came, and all the house was quiet, Margaret still sat watching the beauty of a London sky on such a summer evening; the faint pink reflection of earthly lights on the soft clouds that float into the white moonlight. This room had been the nursery of her childhood, just when her feelings and conscience had been awakened into full activity. On some such night as this she remembered promising to herself to live as brave and noble a life as any heroine; it had seemed to her then that she had only to will, and such a life would be accomplished. And now she had learnt that not only to will, but also to pray, was a necessary condition in the truly heroic. Trusting to herself, she had fallen.
It was only just that all excuses for her sin should remain for ever unknown to the person in whose opinion it had sunk her lowest. She knew her sin for what it was; Mr. Bell's kindly sophistry that nearly all men were guilty of such sins had never had much weight with her. Her anxiety to have her character excused in Mr. Thornton's eyes, as Mr. Bell had promised to do, was a very small and petty consideration, now that she was afresh taught by death what life should be. She stood alone, in the presence of God, and prayed that she might have strength to speak and act the truth for evermore.


"Here we go up, up, up; And here we go down, down, downee!" NURSERY SONG.
Meanwhile at Milton the chimneys smoked, the ceaseless roar and mighty beat and dazzling whirr of machinery struggled and strove perpetually. Senseless and purposeless were wood and iron and steam in their endless labours; but the persistence of their monotonous work was rivalled in tireless endurance by the strong crowds, who, with sense and with purpose, were busy and restless in seeking after--What? In the streets there were few loiterers,--none walking for mere pleasure; every man's face was set in lines of eagerness or anxiety; news was sought for with fierce avidity; and men jostled each other aside in the Mart and in the Exchange, as they did in life, in the deep selfishness of competition. There was gloom over the town. Few came to buy, and those who did were looked at suspiciously by the sellers; for credit was insecure, and the most stable might have their fortunes affected by the sweep in the great neighbouring port among the shipping houses. Hitherto there had been no failures in Milton; but from the immense speculations that had come to light in making a bad end in America, and yet nearer home, it was known that some Milton houses of business must suffer so severely that every day men's faces asked, if their tongues did not, "What news? Who is gone? How will it affect me?" And if two or three spoke together, they dwelt rather on the names of those who were safe than dared to hint at those likely, in their opinion, to go: for idle breath may, at such times, cause the downfall of some who might otherwise weather the storm; and one going down drags many after. "Thornton is safe," say they. "His business is large--extending every year; but such a head as he has, and so prudent with all his daring!" Then one man draws another aside, and walks a little apart, and with head inclined into his neighbour's ear, he says, "Thornton's business is large; but he has spent his profits in extending it; he has no capital laid by; his machinery is new within these two years, and has cost him--we won't say what!--a word to the wise!" But that Mr. Harrison was a croaker,--a man who had succeeded to his father's trade-made fortune, which he had feared to lose by altering his mode of business to any having a larger scope; yet he grudged every penny made by others more daring and far-sighted.
But the truth was, Mr. Thornton was hard pressed. He felt it acutely in his vulnerable point--his pride in the commercial character which he had established for himself. Architect of his own fortunes, he attributed this to no special merit or qualities of his own, but to the power, which he believed that commerce gave to every brave, honest, and persevering man, to raise himself to a level from which he might see and read the great game of worldly success, and honestly, by such far-sightedness, command more power and influence than in any other mode of life. Far away, in the East and in the West, where his person would never be known, his name was to be regarded, and his wishes to be fulfilled, and his word pass like gold. That was the idea of merchant-life with which Mr. Thornton had started. "Her merchants be like princes," said his mother, reading the text aloud, as if it were a trumpet-call to invite her boy to the struggle. He was but like many others--men, women, and children--alive to distant, and dead to near things. He sought to possess the influence of a name in foreign countries and far-away seas,--to become the head of a firm that should be known for generations; and it had taken him long silent years to come even to a glimmering of what he might be now, to-day, here in his own town, his own factory, among his own people. He and they had led parallel lives--very close, but never touching--till the accident (or so it seemed) of his acquaintance with Higgins. Once brought face to face, man to man, with an individual of the masses around him, and (take notice) out of the character of master and workman, in the first instance, they had each begun to recognise that "we have all of us one human heart." It was the fine point of the wedge; and until now, when the apprehension of losing his connection with two or three of the workmen whom he had so lately begun to know as men,--of having a plan or two, which were experiments lying very close to his heart, roughly nipped off without trial,--gave a new poignancy to the subtle fear that came over him from time to time; until now, he had never recognised how much and how deep was the interest he had grown of late to feel in his position of manufacturer, simply because it led him into such close contact, and gave him the opportunity of so much power, among a race of people strange, shrewd, ignorant; but, above all, full of character and strong human feeling.
He reviewed his position as a Milton manufacturer. The strike a year and a half ago,--or more, for it was now untimely wintry weather, in a late spring,--that strike, when he was young, and he now was old--had prevented his completing some of the large orders he had then on hand. He had locked up a good deal of his capital in new and expensive machinery, and he had also bought cotton largely, for the fulfilment of these orders, taken under contract. That he had not been able to complete them, was owing in some degree to the utter want of skill on the part of the Irish hands whom he had imported; much of their work was damaged and unfit to be sent forth by a house which prided itself on turning out nothing but first-rate articles. For many months, the embarrassment caused by the strike had been an obstacle in Mr. Thornton's way; and often, when his eye fell on Higgins, he could have spoken angrily to him without any present cause, just from feeling how serious was the injury that had arisen from this affair in which he was implicated. But when he became conscious of this sudden, quick resentment, he resolved to curb it. It would not satisfy him to avoid Higgins; he must convince himself that he was master over his own anger, by being particularly careful to allow Higgins access to him, whenever the strict rules of business, or Mr. Thornton's leisure permitted. And by-and-bye, he lost all sense of resentment in wonder how it was, or could be, that two men like himself and Higgins, living by the same trade, working in their different ways at the same object, could look upon each other's position and duties in so strangely different a way. And thence arose that intercourse, which, though it might not have the effect of preventing all future clash of opinion and action, when the occasion arose, would, at any rate, enable both master and man to look upon each other with far more charity and sympathy, and bear with each other more patiently and kindly. Besides this improvement of feeling, both Mr. Thornton and his workmen found out their ignorance as to positive matters of fact, known heretofore to one side, but not to the other.
But now had come one of those periods of bad trade, when the market falling brought down the value of all large stocks; Mr. Thornton's fell to nearly half. No orders were coming in; so he lost the interest of the capital he had locked up in machinery; indeed, it was difficult to get payment for the orders completed; yet there was the constant drain of expenses for working the business. Then the bills became due for the cotton he had purchased; and money being scarce, he could only borrow at exorbitant interest, and yet he could not realise any of his property. But he did not despair; he exerted himself day and night to foresee and to provide for all emergencies; he was as calm and gentle to the women in his home as ever; to the workmen in his mill he spoke not many words, but they knew him by this time; and many a curt, decided answer was received by them rather with sympathy for the care they saw pressing upon him, than with the suppressed antagonism which had formerly been smouldering, and ready for hard words and hard judgments on all occasions. "Th' measter's a deal to potter him," said Higgins, one day, as he heard Mr. Thornton's short, sharp inquiry, why such a command had not been obeyed; and caught the sound of the suppressed sigh which he heaved in going past the room where some of the men were working. Higgins and another man stopped over-hours that night, unknown to any one, to get the neglected piece of work done; and Mr. Thornton never knew but that the overlooker, to whom he had given the command in the first instance, had done it himself.
"Eh! I reckon I know who'd ha' been sorry for to see our measter sitting so like a piece o' grey calico! Th' oud parson would ha' fretted his woman's heart out, if he'd seen the woeful looks I have seen on our measter's face," thought Higgins, one day, as he was approaching Mr. Thornton in Marlborough Street.
"Measter," said he, stopping his employer in his quick resolved walk, and causing that gentleman to look up with a sudden annoyed start, as if his thoughts had been far away.
"Have yo' heerd aught of Miss Marget lately?"
"Miss--who?" replied Mr. Thornton.
"Miss Marget--Miss Hale--th' oud parson's daughter--yo' known who I mean well enough--if yo'll only think a bit--" (there was nothing disrespectful in the tone in which this was said).
"Oh yes!" and suddenly the wintry frost-bound look of care had left Mr. Thornton's face, as if some soft summer gale had blown all anxiety away from his mind; and though his mouth was as much compressed as before, his eyes smiled out benignly on his questioner.
"She's my landlord now, you know, Higgins. I hear of her through her agent here, every now and then. She's well and among friends--thank you, Higgins." That "thank you" lingered after the other words, and yet came with so much warmth of feeling, let in a new light to the acute Higgins. It might be but a will-o'-th'-wisp, but he thought he would follow it and ascertain whither it would lead him.
"And she's not getten married, measter?"
"Not yet." The face was cloudy once more. "There is some talk of it, as I understand, with a connection of the family."
"Then she'll not be for coming to Milton again, I reckon."
"No!"
"Stop a minute, measter." Then going up confidentially close, he said, "Is th' young gentleman cleared?" He enforced the depth of his intelligence by a wink of the eye, which only made things more mysterious to Mr. Thornton.
"Th' young gentleman, I mean--Master Frederick, they ca'ed him--her brother as was over here, yo' known."
"Over here."
"Ay, to be sure, at th' missus's death. Yo' need na be feared of my telling; for Mary and me, we knowed it all along, only we held our peace, for we got it through Mary working in th' house."
"And he was over. It was her brother."
"Sure enough, and I reckoned yo' knowed it, or I'd never ha' let on. Yo' knowed she had a brother?"
"Yes, I know all about him. And he was over at Mrs. Hale's death?"
"Nay! I'm not going for to tell more. I've maybe getten them into mischief already, for they kept it very close. I nobbut wanted to know if they'd getten him cleared?"
"Not that I know of. I know nothing. I only hear of Miss Hale, now, as my landlord, and through her lawyer."
He broke off from Higgins, to follow the business on which he had been bent when the latter first accosted him; leaving Higgins baffled in his endeavour.
"It was her brother," said Mr. Thornton to himself. "I am glad. I may never see her again; but it is a comfort--a relief--to know that much. I knew she could not be unmaidenly; and yet I yearned for conviction. Now I am glad!"
It was a little golden thread running through the dark web of his present fortunes; which were growing ever gloomier and more gloomy. His agent had largely trusted a house in the American trade, which went down, along with several others, just at this time, like a pack of cards, the fall of one compelling other failures. What were Mr. Thornton's engagements? Could he stand?
Night after night he took books and papers into his own private room, and sate up there long after the family were gone to bed. He thought no one knew of this occupation of the hours he should have spent in sleep. One morning, when daylight was stealing in through the crevices of his shutters, and he had never been in bed, and, in hopeless indifference of mind, was thinking that he could do without the hour or two of rest, which was all that he should be able to take before the stir of daily labour began again, the door of his room opened, and his mother stood there, dressed as she had been the day before. She had never laid herself down to slumber any more than he. Their eyes met. Their faces were cold and rigid, and wan, from long watching.
"Mother! why are you not in bed?"
"Son John," said she, "do you think I can sleep with an easy mind, while you keep awake full of care? You have not told me what your trouble is; but sore trouble you have had these many days past."
"Trade is bad."
"And you dread----"
"I dread nothing," replied he, drawing up his head, and holding it erect. "I know that no man will suffer by me. That was my anxiety."
"But how do you stand? Shall you--will it be a failure?" her steady voice trembling in an unwonted manner.
"Not a failure. I must give up business, but I pay all men. I might redeem myself--I am sorely tempted--"
"How? Oh, John! keep up your name--try all risks for that. How redeem it?"
"By a speculation offered to me, but full of risk; but, if successful, placing me high above water-mark, so that no one need ever know the strait I am in. Still, if it fails--"
"And if it fails," said she, advancing, and laying her hand on his arm, her eyes full of eager light. She held her breath to hear the end of his speech.
"Honest men are ruined by a rogue," said he gloomily. "As I stand now, my creditors' money is safe--every farthing of it; but I don't know where to find my own--it may be all gone, and I penniless at this moment. Therefore, it is my creditors' money that I should risk."
"But if it succeeded, they need never know. Is it so desperate a speculation? I am sure it is not, or you would never have thought of it. If it succeeded--"
"I should be a rich man, and my peace of conscience would be gone!"
"Why! You would have injured no one."
"No; but I should have run the risk of ruining many for my own paltry aggrandisement. Mother, I have decided! You won't much grieve over our leaving this house, shall you, dear mother?"
"No! but to have you other than what you are will break my heart. What can you do?"
"Be always the same John Thornton in whatever circumstances; endeavouring to do right, and making great blunders; and then trying to be brave in setting to afresh. But it is hard, mother. I have worked and planned. I have discovered new powers in my situation too late--and now all is over. I am too old to begin again with the same heart. It is hard, mother."
He turned away from her, and covered his face with his hands.
"I can't think," said she, with gloomy defiance in her tone, "how it comes about. Here is my boy--good son, just man, tender heart--and he fails in all he sets his mind upon: he finds a woman to love, and she cares no more for his affection than if he had been a common man; he labours, and his labour comes to nought. Other people grow rich, and hold their paltry names high and dry above shame."
"Shame never touched me," said he, in a low tone: but she went on.
"I sometimes have wondered where justice was gone to, and now I don't believe there is such a thing in the world--now you are come to this; you, my own John Thornton, though you and I may be beggars together--my own dear son!"
She fell upon his neck, and kissed him through her tears.
"Mother!" said he, holding her gently in his arms, "who has sent me my lot in life, both of good and evil?"
She shook her head. She would have nothing to do with religion just then.
"Mother," he went on, seeing that she would not speak. "I, too, have been rebellious; but I'm striving to be so no longer. Help me, as you helped me when I was a child. Then you said many good words--when my father died, and we were sometimes sorely short of comforts--which we shall never be now; you said brave, noble, trustful words then, mother, which I have never forgotten, though they may have lain dormant. Speak to me again in the old way, mother. Do not let us have to think that the world has too much hardened our hearts. If you would say the old good words, it would make me feel something of the pious simplicity of my childhood. I say them to myself, but they would come differently from you, remembering all the cares and trials you have had to bear."
"I have had a many," said she, sobbing, "but none so sore as this. To see you cast down from your rightful place! I could say it for myself, John, but not for you. Not for you! God has seen fit to be very hard on you, very."
She shook with the sobs that come so convulsively when an old person weeps. The silence around her struck her at last; and she quieted herself to listen. No sound. She looked. Her son sate by the table, his arms thrown half across it, his head bent face downwards.
"Oh, John!" she said, and she lifted his face up. Such a strange, pallid look of gloom was on it, that for a moment it struck her that this look was the forerunner of death; but as the rigidity melted out of the countenance and the natural colour returned, and she saw that he was himself once again, all worldly mortification sank to nothing before the consciousness of the great blessing that he himself, by his simple existence was to her. She thanked God for this, and this alone, with a fervour that swept away all rebellious feelings from her mind.
He did not speak readily; but he went and opened the shutters, and let the ruddy light of dawn flood the room. But the wind was in the east; the weather was piercing cold, as it had been for weeks; there would be no demand for light summer goods this year. That hope for the revival of trade must utterly be given up.
It was a great comfort to have had this conversation with his mother; and to feel sure that, however they might henceforward keep silence on all these anxieties, they yet understood each other's feelings, and were, if not in harmony, at least in discord with each other, in their way of viewing them. Fanny's husband was vexed at Thornton's refusal to take any share in the speculation which he had offered to him, and withdrew from any possibility of being supposed able to assist him with the ready money, which indeed the speculator needed for his own venture.
There was nothing for it at last, but that which Mr. Thornton had dreaded for many weeks; he had to give up the business in which he had been so long engaged with so much honour and success; and look out for a subordinate situation. Marlborough Mills and the adjacent dwelling were held under a long lease; they must if possible be relet. There was an immediate choice of situations offered to Mr. Thornton. Mr. Hamper would have been only too glad to have secured him as a steady and experienced partner for his son, whom he was setting up with a large capital in a neighbouring town; but the young man was half-educated as regarded information, and wholly uneducated as regarded any other responsibility than that of getting money, and brutalised both as to his pleasures and his pains. Mr. Thornton declined having any share in a partnership, which would frustrate what few plans he had that survived the wreck of his fortunes. He would sooner consent to be only a manager, where he could have a certain degree of power beyond the mere money-getting part, than have to fall in with the tyrannical humours of a moneyed partner with whom he felt sure that he should quarrel in a few months.
So he waited, and stood on one side with profound humility, as the news swept through the Exchange of the enormous fortune which his brother-in-law had made by his daring speculation. It was a nine days' wonder. Success brought with it its worldly consequence of extreme admiration. No one was considered so wise and far-seeing as Mr. Watson.

Meanwhile at Milton, the chimneys smoked, the ceaseless roar and mighty beat and whirl of machinery strove perpetually. Senseless and purposeless were wood and iron and steam in their endless labours; but they were rivalled in tireless endurance by the strong crowds, who, with sense and with purpose, were restlessly seeking after - what? In the streets there were few loiterers - none walking for mere pleasure. Men sought news with fierce avidity; and jostled each other aside in the Exchange, as they did in life, in the deep selfishness of competition.
There was gloom over the town. Few came to buy, and those who did were looked at suspiciously by the sellers; for credit was insecure, and the most stable might have their fortunes affected by the sweep in the great neighbouring port among the shipping houses. Hitherto there had been no failures in Milton; but, from the immense speculations that had made a bad end in America, and nearer home, it was known that some Milton houses of business must suffer severely. When men spoke together, they dwelt rather on the names of those who were safe than those who were likely to go under; for at such times idle rumour may bring down some who might otherwise weather the storm; and one going down drags many after.
'Thornton is safe,' say they. 'His business is large - extending every year; but he's prudent for all his daring.' Then one man draws another aside, and says quietly, 'Thornton's business is large; but he has spent his profits in extending it and buying new machinery; he has no capital laid by.'
The truth was, Mr. Thornton was hard pressed. He felt it acutely. It wounded his pride in the commercial character which he had established for himself. He attributed this to no special merit of his own, but to the power which he believed that commerce gave to every honest and persevering man to raise himself to a position of influence. Far away, East and West, his name was to be regarded, and his wishes to be fulfilled, and his word pass like gold. That was his idea of merchant-life. He was like many others - alive to distant, and dead to near things. He sought to become the head of a firm that should be known abroad for generations; and it had taken him long silent years to come even to a glimmering of what he might be, even in his own town, among his own people. He and they had led parallel lives - close, but never touching - till his acquaintance with Higgins. Once brought face to face, master and workman had begun to recognise that 'we have all of us one human heart.'
It was the fine point of the wedge. Now, the apprehension of losing some of the workmen whom he had so lately begun to know - and of having plans, very close to his heart, roughly nipped off without trial - gave a new poignancy to the subtle fear that came over him from time to time. Until now, he had never recognised how deep was the interest he had lately grown to feel in his position as manufacturer, simply because it led him into such close contact, and gave him so much power, among a race of people strange, shrewd, ignorant; but full of character and strong human feeling.
He reviewed his position. The strike more than a year and a half ago, when he was young, had prevented his completing some of the large orders he had then on hand. He had locked up a good deal of his capital in new and expensive machinery, and he had also bought cotton for the fulfilment of these orders. He had not been able to complete them partly due to the utter lack of skill of the imported Irish hands, whose work was unfit to be sent forth by a house which prided itself on turning out only first-rate articles. For many months, the embarrassment caused by the strike had been an obstacle in Mr. Thornton's way; and when he saw Higgins, he could have spoken angrily to him just because of this sense of injury.
But when he became conscious of this resentment, he resolved to curb it. He must convince himself that he was master over his own anger, by being particularly careful to allow Higgins access to him whenever business permitted. And by-and-bye, he lost all sense of resentment in wonder how it was that two men like himself and Higgins, living by the same trade, working at the same object, could look upon each other's position and duties in so strangely different a way. Their meetings did not prevent all future clash of opinion, but they enabled both master and man to treat each other with far more sympathy and patience. In addition, both Mr. Thornton and his workmen discovered their ignorance about facts known to one side, but not to the other.
But now had come one of those periods of bad trade, when the falling market brought down the value of all large stocks. Mr. Thornton's fell to nearly half. No orders were coming in, so he lost the interest of the capital he had locked up in machinery; indeed, it was difficult to get payment for the orders he completed; yet there was the constant drain of expenses. Then the bills became due for the cotton he had purchased; and money being scarce, he could only borrow at exorbitant interest.
He did not despair. He exerted himself day and night to foresee and provide for all emergencies. He was as calm and gentle to the women in his home as ever; to the workmen in his mill he spoke little, but they knew him by this time; and many a curt answer was received by them with sympathy for the care they saw pressing upon him, rather than their previous antagonism.
'Th' measter's a deal to potter him,' said Higgins one day, as he heard Mr. Thornton's sharp inquiry as to why a command had not been obeyed; and caught the sound of his suppressed sigh. Higgins and another man stopped over-hours that night, unknown to anyone, to get the neglected piece of work done; and Mr. Thornton assumed that the overlooker, to whom he had given the command, had done it himself.
'Eh! I reckon I know who'd ha' been sorry for to see our measter sitting so like a piece o' grey calico! Th' oud parson would ha' fretted his heart out, if he'd seen the measter so woeful,' thought Higgins, one day, as he was approaching Mr. Thornton in Marlborough Street.
'Measter,' said he, causing that gentleman to look up with a sudden annoyed start, as if his thoughts had been far away. 'Have yo' heerd aught of Miss Marget lately?'
'Miss who?' replied Mr. Thornton.
'Miss Hale - th' oud parson's daughter - yo' known who I mean, if yo'll only think a bit.' (There was nothing disrespectful in his tone.)
'Oh yes!' and suddenly, the wintry frost-bound look of care left Mr. Thornton's face, as if some soft summer gale had blown anxiety away from his mind. 'She's my landlord now, you know, Higgins. I hear of her through her agent, every now and then. She's well and among friends - thank you, Higgins.' That lingering 'thank you', which came with so much warmth of feeling, let in a new light to the acute Higgins. It might be but a will-o'-th'-wisp, but he thought he would follow it and see where it led him.
'And she's not getten married, measter?'
'Not yet.' The face was cloudy once more. 'There is some talk of it, as I understand.'
'Then she'll not be coming to Milton again, I reckon.'
'No!'
'Stop a minute, measter.' Going up confidentially close, he said, 'Is th' young gentleman cleared?' and winked his eye, which only made things more mysterious to Mr. Thornton.
'Th' young gentleman - Master Frederick - her brother as was over here, yo' known.'
'Over here?'
'Ay, to be sure, at th' missus's death. Yo' need na be feared of my telling; for Mary and me, we knowed it all along, from Mary working in th' house.'
'And he was over. It was her brother!'
'Sure enough. I reckoned yo' knowed it or I'd never ha' let on. Yo' knowed she had a brother?'
'Yes, I know all about him. And he was over at Mrs. Hale's death?'
'Nay! I'm not going to tell more. I've maybe getten them into mischief already. I nobbut wanted to know if they'd getten him cleared?'
'I don't know. I only hear of Miss Hale now as my landlord, and through her lawyer.'
He broke away to go on his business, leaving Higgins baffled in his endeavour.
'It was her brother,' said Mr. Thornton to himself. 'I am glad. I may never see her again; but it is a comfort - a relief - to know that much. I knew she could not be unmaidenly; and yet I yearned for conviction. Now I am glad!'
It was a little golden thread running through the dark web of his present fortunes, which were growing ever gloomier. His agent had trusted a firm in the American trade, which had just gone down along with several others like a pack of cards. Could he still stand?
Night after night he took papers into his private room, and sat up long after the family were gone to bed. He thought that no one knew of this. But one morning, when daylight was stealing in through the crevices of his shutters, and he, in hopeless indifference, was thinking that he could do without the hour or two of rest which was all that was possible - the door opened, and his mother stood there, dressed as she had been the day before. She had not lain down to sleep any more than he. Their eyes met. Their faces were cold and rigid, and wan.
'Mother! why are you not in bed?'
'Son John,' said she, 'do you think I can sleep with an easy mind, while you keep awake full of care? You have not told me what your trouble is; but sore trouble you have had these many days past.'
'Trade is bad.'
'And you dread-'
'I dread nothing,' replied he, lifting his head. 'I know now that no man will suffer by me. That was my anxiety.'
'But how do you stand? Will it be a failure?' Her steady voice trembled.
'Not a failure. I must give up business, but I can pay all men. I might redeem myself - I am sorely tempted-'
'How? Oh, John! try anything to keep up your name. How?'
'By a speculation offered to me, full of risk. If successful, no one need ever know the strait I am in. If it fails-'
'If it fails?' She held her breath.
'Honest men are ruined by a rogue,' said he gloomily. 'As I stand now, my creditors' money is safe; but I don't know where to find my own - I may be penniless. Therefore, it is my creditors' money that I would be risking.'
'But if it succeeded, they need never know. Is it so desperate a speculation? If it succeeded, you would have injured no one.'
'No; but I should have run the risk of ruining many for my own selfish ends. Mother, I have decided! You won't much grieve over our leaving this house, shall you, dear mother?'
'No! but to have you other than what you are will break my heart. What can you do?'
'Be always the same John Thornton in whatever circumstances; endeavouring to do right, and making great blunders; and then trying to be brave in setting to afresh. But it is hard, mother. I have so worked and planned, and I have discovered new powers too late - now all is over. I am too old to begin again with the same heart. It is hard, mother.'
He turned away from her, and covered his face.
'I can't think,' said she, with gloomy defiance in her tone, 'how it comes about. Here is a good, just, tender heart - and he fails in all he sets his mind upon: he finds a woman to love, and she cares nothing for his affection; he labours, and his labour comes to nought. Other people prosper and grow rich, and hold their paltry names high and dry above shame.'
'Shame never touched me,' said he, in a low tone: but she went on.
'I don't believe there is such a thing as justice in the world, now you are come to this; my own John Thornton, though you and I may be beggars together - my own dear son!'
She kissed him through her tears.
'Mother!' said he, holding her gently in his arms, 'who has sent me my lot in life?'
She shook her head. She would have nothing to do with religion just then.
Seeing that she would not speak, he went on. 'I, too, have been rebellious; but I am striving to be so no longer. Help me, as you helped me when I was a child. Then, when my father died, and we were sorely short of comforts, you said brave, noble, trustful words, mother, which I have never forgotten. Speak to me again in the old way. Do not let us think that the world has too much hardened our hearts. I say the old words to myself, but they would come differently from you, remembering all your cares and trials.'
'I have had many,' said she, sobbing, 'but none so sore as this. To see you cast down from your rightful place! I could say it for myself, John, but not for you! God has seen fit to be very hard on you, very.'
She shook with convulsive sobs, until the silence struck her at last. She looked up. Her son sat by the table, his arms thrown half across it, his head face downwards.
'Oh, John!' she said, and she lifted his face up. Such a strange look of gloom was on it, that for a moment it struck her that this look was the forerunner of death; but, as the rigidity melted out of his face and his colour returned, she saw that he was himself once again, and she was conscious only of the great blessing of his existence. She thanked God for this, with a fervour that swept away all rebellious feelings.
He went and opened the shutters, and let the light of dawn flood the room. The wind was in the east; the weather was piercing cold, as it had been for weeks; there would be no demand for light summer goods this year.
It was a great comfort to have had this conversation with his mother; and to feel sure that they understood each other's feelings, and were, if not in harmony, at least not in discord with each other. Fanny's husband Mr. Watson was vexed at Thornton's refusal to take any share in the speculation which he had offered him, and which he himself had taken up.
There was nothing for it at last, but that which Mr. Thornton had dreaded for many weeks. He had to give up the business in which he had been so long engaged with so much honour and success; and look out for a subordinate situation. Marlborough Mills and the house must be, if possible, re-let.
There was an immediate choice of situations offered to Mr. Thornton. Mr. Hamper would have been glad to have secured him as a steady and experienced partner for his son, whom he was setting up in a neighbouring town; but the young man was uneducated about any other responsibility than that of getting money, and brutalised in both his pleasures and his pains. Mr. Thornton declined having any share in the partnership. He would sooner consent to be only a manager, than have to fall in with the tyrannical humours of a partner with whom he felt sure that he should quarrel.
So he waited with profound humility, as the news swept through the Exchange of the enormous fortune which his brother-in-law had made by his daring speculation. It was a nine days' wonder, bringing the world's admiration. No one was considered so wise and far-seeing as Mr. Watson.