"Mr. Thornton!" said Margaret, again.

"I met him this morning, just as he was
coming out of this house, and, as he's an old
friend of mine, besides being the magistrate
who saw Leonards last night, I made bold to
tell him of my difficulty."

Margaret sighed deeply. She did not want
to hear any more; she was afraid alike of
what she had heard, and of what she might
hear. She wished that the man would go. She
forced herself to speak.

"Thank you for calling. It is very late. I
dare say it is past ten o'clock. Oh! here is
the note!" she continued, suddenly interpreting
the meaning of the hand held out to
receive it. He was putting it up, when she
said, "I think it is a cramped, dazzling sort of
writing. I could not read it; will you just
read it to me?"

He read it aloud to her.

"Thank you. You told Mr. Thornton that
I was not there?"

"Oh, of course, ma'am. I'm sorry now
that I acted upon information, which seems
to have been so erroneous. At first the
young man was so positive; and now he
says that he doubted all along, and hopes
that his mistake won't have occasioned you
such annoyance as to lose their shop your
custom. Good night, ma'am."

"Good night." She rang the bell for
Dixon to show him out. As Dixon returned
up the passage Margaret passed her
swiftly.

"It is all right! " said she, without looking
at Dixon; and before the woman could
follow her with further questions she had sped
up-stairs, and entered her bed-chamber, and
bolted her door.

She threw herself, dressed as she was, upon
her bed. She was too much exhausted to
think. Half-an-hour or more elapsed before
the cramped nature of her position, and the
chilliness, supervening upon great fatigue,
had the power to rouse her numbed faculties.
Then she began to recall, to combine, to wonder.
The first idea that presented itself to
her was, that all this sickening alarm on
Frederick's behalf was over; that the strain
was past. The next was a wish to remember
every word of the Inspector's which related to
Mr. Thornton. When had he seen him? What
had he said? What had Mr. Thornton done?
What were the exact words of his note?
And until she could recollect, even to the
placing or omitting an article, the very
expressions which he had used in the note, her
mind refused to go on with its progress. But
the next conviction she came to was clear
enough; Mr. Thornton had seen her close to
Outwood station on the fatal Thursday night,
and had been told of her denial that she was
there. She stood as a liar in his eyes. She
was a liar. But she had no thought of penitence
before God; nothing but chaos and
night surrounded the one lurid fact that, in
Mr. Thornton's eyes, she was degraded. She
cared not to think, even to herself, of how
much of excuse she might plead. That had
nothing to do with Mr. Thornton; she never
dreamed that he, or any one else, could find
cause for suspicion in what was so natural
as her accompanying her brother; but what
was really false and wrong was known to him,
and he had a right to judge her. "Oh, Frederick!
Frederick!" she cried, "what have
I not sacrificed for you!" Even when she
fell asleep her thoughts were compelled to
travel the same circle, only with exaggerated
and monstrous circumstances of
pain.

When she awoke a new idea flashed
upon her with all the brightness of the
morning. Mr. Thornton had learnt her falsehood
before he went to the coroner: that
suggested the thought, that he had possibly
been influenced so to do with a view of sparing
her the repetition of her denial. But she
pushed this notion on one side with the sick
wilfulness of a child. If it were so, she felt no
gratitude to him, as it only showed her how
keenly he must have seen that she was disgraced
already, before he took such unwonted
pains to spare her any further trial of truthfulness
which had already failed so signally.
She would have gone through the whole—
she would have perjured herself to save Frederick,
rather—far rather— than Mr. Thornton
should have had the knowledge that
prompted him to interfere to save her. What
ill-fate brought him in contact with the Inspector?
What made him be the very magistrate
sent for to receive Leonards' deposition?
What had Leonards said? How much
of it was intelligible to Mr. Thornton, who
might already, for aught she knew, be aware
of the old accusation against Frederick,
through their mutual friend Mr. Bell? If
so, he had striven to save the son, who came
in defiance of the law to attend his mother's
death-bed. And under this idea she could feel
grateful—not yet, if ever she should, if his
interference had been prompted by contempt. Oh!
had any one such just cause to feel contempt
for her? Mr. Thornton, above all people, on
whom she had looked down from her imaginary
heights till now! She suddenly found
herself at his feet, and was strangely distressed
at her fall. She shrank from following
out the premises to their conclusion, and so
acknowledging to herself how much she
valued his respect and good opinion. Whenever
this idea presented itself to her at the
end of a long avenue of thoughts, she turned
away from following that path—she would
not believe in it.

It was later than she fancied, for in the
agitation of the previous night, she had forgotten
to wind up her watch; and Mr. Hale
had given especial orders that she was not to
be disturbed by the usual awakening. By and
by the door opened cautiously, and Dixon
put her head in. Perceiving that Margaret
was awake, she came forwards with a letter.