Volume Ii Part 11 (2/2)

”Oh! and what did it matter to him whether you were married or unmarried?” he said, angrily; ”was he your lover?”

”I never knew it till----” Margaret was too truthful to s.h.i.+rk a direct question.

”Well, be good enough to speak; if you do not----” and he moved close up to her.

His threat gave Margaret courage.

”I have no wish to hide anything from you,” she said, coldly and with dignity; ”I did not know that Sir Albert Gerald cared for me. I misunderstood something he said to me about not being free. He did not know where I was, and yesterday he pa.s.sed by accident. He did not know anything. I told him I was now your wife and....”

”And you have cried ever since he left, and that is why you grow white and red,” he said. ”Had you known he loved you would you have married me?”

”Never!” said Margaret, looking at him directly.

”Thank you,” he said, ”now I know you. I have been a fool all round!”

He threw himself into a chair and gazed moodily before him.

”You married me knowing I had no love to give,” Margaret said, gently; ”I told you myself.”

”You did not tell me you loved some one else,” he said savagely, ”and that is quite different; you have deceived me from first to last!”

”I have never wilfully deceived you--and I did not know it myself,” she said. ”I thought it had been but a pleasant break in my life, and that all was over.”

He made her no answer, but as he rose to leave the room he said, ”You must be ready to start to-night after dinner. Some bad news hurries me to England.”

”To England!” exclaimed Margaret, quickly. ”Oh, I shall be glad to be at home once more.”

He looked at her for a moment, and then, throwing his head back, he laughed in his usual loud way, and, for the first time, the sound brought relief to her.

She little knew him. She did not know the morbid intense jealousy that filled him. He never forgot the smallest slight to himself, or the tiniest wound offered to his vanity. He kept these feelings carefully covered up, but, sooner or later, he brought them forward, and if he could revenge himself, he did, when the whole transaction had been entirely forgotten by the delinquent himself.

Going to England meant being nearer Grace, from whom she had not heard for a long time, and she felt less forlorn and happier than she had done for a very long time.

Poor child! She did not recognise the great difference Sir Albert's words had made to her. She did not a.n.a.lyse her feelings, but she was really happier because the sting of having loved unsought was taken away from her. She did not realise how much this wounded and hurt her. Now the pain was lighter, all was easier to bear.

Margaret had never dwelt much upon the subject of her husband's wealth, and since he had broken faith with her, and had refused to help Grace, she had made up her mind that she would manage to do so--so soon as she had the command of money she expected to have, as a matter of course.

She was one of the few women who not only did not care for ornament but who rather disliked it. She had a preference for everything simple and fresh, and considered that all things in the matter of dress were spoiled by ornamentation and tr.i.m.m.i.n.g. She loved soft stuffs that took graceful folds, and had a dislike to rustling silks, and the few gowns she had, were remarkable for their softness, the harmonious colouring in which no two colours ever entered, and a certain fitness for her peculiar style. This outward expression of her sense of what was pleasant to look at, was in correspondence with her purity of thought, into which so little that was mean or small could enter. She might be what Grace always said she was--exalted and apt to incline to a certain exaggeration of feeling about all things; but everyday things to her seemed of importance, since they affected the lives of others, and she had the highest possible conception of the duties of life in general, and of her own life in particular. She resolutely put away from her all thoughts of what might have been, and resolved to do her best to be a more congenial wife to her husband. In order to fulfil these duties she must learn to know him better, to understand his affairs, and to show her interest in his occupations.

Mr. Drayton, who at this moment was guarding his losses and his real position carefully from the knowledge of every one as far as possible, was disagreeably surprised by her developing what he considered curiosity on the subject. He imagined directly that in some way she had received a hint, and was proportionately alarmed and annoyed.

He found it useless to try and give her superficial explanations, which were generally inconsistent. She was so completely unprejudiced, and her real interest lay so completely outside those things, that her critical faculty was utterly impaired, and she demonstrated his fallacies with a quickness which amazed him. She had all the acuteness he was wanting in, and he was forced to confess to himself that had it not been too late, she might have given him valuable help.

But he did not understand her, and he mistrusted her; consequently he gave her no real confidence, and indeed upon more than one occasion he tried to mislead her.

From that moment she never asked him another question. She had done what she conceived to be her duty, and the result was to lower him for ever in her eyes. She was indeed a severe young judge, as many of her discoveries were ”in the way of business,” and might have been made to bear an elastic interpretation; but she was conscious that this outcome of her sense of duty was destroying every chance of forbearing with her husband's peculiarities, and, if so, she must resign herself to not understanding; she gave him no more trouble, and he was equally incapable of comprehending the withdrawal of her interest as he was of its origin.

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