Margaret, I'm glad it is done, though I durst not
have done it myself. I'm thankful it is as it
is; I should have hesitated till perhaps it
might have been too late to do any good. Dear
Margaret, you have done what is right about
it; and the end is beyond our control."

It was all very well; but her father's
account of the relentless manner in which
mutinies were punished made Margaret shiver
and creep. If she had decoyed her brother
home to blot out the memory of his error by
his blood! She saw her father's anxiety lay
deeper than the source of his latter cheering
words. She took his arm, and walked home
pensively and wearily by his side.

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SIXTH.

WHEN Mr. Thornton had left the house
that morning he was almost blinded by his
battled passion. He was as dizzy as if
Margaret, instead of looking, and speaking, and
moving like a tender graceful woman, had
been a sturdy fish-wife, and given him a
sound blow with her fists. He had positive
bodily pain,—a violent headache, and a
throbbing intermittent pulse. He could not
bear the noise, the garish light, the continued
rumble and movement of the street. He
called himself a fool for suffering so; and yet
he could not, at the moment, recollect the
cause of his suffering, and whether it was
adequate to the consequences it had
produced. It would have been a relief to him if
he could have sat down and cried on a doorstep
by a little child who was raging and
storming, through his passionate tears, at some
injury he had received. He said to himself that
he hated Margaret, but a wild, sharp sensation
of love cleft his dull thunderous feeling
like lightning, even as he shaped the words
expressive of hatred. His greatest comfort
was in hugging his torment; and in feeling,
as he had indeed said to her, that though she
might despise him, contemn him, treat him
with her proud sovereign indifference, he did
not change one whit. She could not make him
change. He loved her, and would love her;
and defy her, and this miserable bodily pain.

He stood still for a moment, to make this
resolution firm and clear. There was an
omnibus passing,—going into the country;
the conductor thought he was wishing for a
place, and stopped near the pavement. It was
too much trouble to apologise and explain;
so he mounted upon it, and was borne
away,—past long rows of houses—then
past detached villas with trim gardens, till
they came to real country hedge-rows, and,
by-and-by, to a small country town. Then
everybody got down; and so did Mr. Thornton,
and because they walked away he did so
too. He went into the fields, walking briskly,
because the sharp motion relieved his mind.
He could remember all about it now; the
pitiful figure he must have cut; the absurd
way in which he had gone and done the very
thing he had so often agreed with himself in
thinking would be the most foolish thing in
the world; and had met with exactly the
consequences, which, in these wise moods, he
had always foretold were certain to follow, if
he ever did make such a fool of himself.
Was he bewitched by those beautiful eyes,
that soft, half-open, sighing mouth which lay
so close upon his shoulder only yesterday?
He could not even shake off the recollection
that she had been there; that her arms had
been round him, once—if never again. He
only caught glimpses of her; he did not
understand her altogether. At one time she
was so brave, and at another so timid; now
so tender, and then so haughty and regal-
proud. And then he thought over every
time he had ever seen her once again,
by way of finally forgetting her. He saw
her in every dress, in every mood, and
did not know which became her best. Even
this morning, how magnificent she had
looked,—her eyes flashing out upon him at
the idea that, because she had shared his
danger yesterday, she had cared for him the
least!

If Mr. Thornton was a fool in the morning, as
he assured himself at least twenty times he
was, he did not grow much wiser in the
afternoon. All that he gained, in return for
his sixpenny omnibus ride, was a more vivid
conviction that there never was, never could
be, any one like Margaret; that she did not
love him and never would; but that she—no!
nor the whole world—should never hinder
him from loving her. And so he returned
to the little market-place, and remounted the
omnibus to return to Milton.

It was late in the afternoon when he was
set down, near his warehouse. The accustomed
places brought back the accustomed
habits and trains of thought. He knew how
much he had to do—more than his usual
work, owing to the commotion of the day
before. He had to see his brother
magistrates; he had to complete the arrangements,
only half made in the morning, for the
comfort and safety of his newly imported Irish
hands; he had to secure them from all
chance of communication with the discontented
workpeople of Milton. Last of all, he
had to go home and encounter his mother.

Mrs. Thornton had sat in the dining-room
all day, every moment expecting the news of
her son's acceptance by Miss Hale. She had
braced herself up many and many a time, at
some sudden noise in the house; had caught
up the half-dropped work, and begun to ply her
needle diligently, though through dimmed
spectacles, and with an unsteady hand; and many
times had the door opened, and some
indifferent person entered on some insignificant
errand. Then her rigid face unstiffened from its
gray frost-bound expression, and the features
dropped into the relaxed look of despondency,
so unusual to their sternness. She
wrenched herself away from the contemplation
of all the dreary changes that would be brought