It will probably be entirely unnecessary to inform the intelligent reader what was the nature of the contents of the letter which James Dugdale had handed to Mrs. Hungerford. Retrospect, present knowledge, or anticipation will convey a sufficiently accurate perception of it to all the readers of this story.  
The writing of that letter was the result of a long and entirely unreserved conversation which had taken place between Lady Davyntry and her brother, after the last-recorded interview between the former and Margaret.
 
So entirely confident was Eleanor of Mr. Baldwin's feelings and intentions, that she no longer hesitated to speak to him on the matter nearest her heart from any apprehension of defeating her own purpose by precipitation.
 
In the doubts and fears, in the passionate and painful burst of reminiscence which had given her added insight into Margaret's nature. Lady Davyntry had seen, far more plainly than Margaret,--or at least than ever she had confessed to herself,--that a new love, a fresh hope, had come to her. The very strife of feeling which she confessed and described betrayed her to the older woman, whose wisdom, though rather of the heart than of the understanding, was true in this case.
 
"It will never do to let her brood over this sort of thing," said Lady Davyntry to herself with decision. "The more time she has to think over it, the more danger there is of her working herself up into a morbid state of mind, persuading herself that she ought to sacrifice her own happiness, and make Fitz wretched, because she had the misfortune to be married to a villain, and associated, through him, with some very bad people--the more she will tax her memory and torture her feelings, by trying to recall and realise all the past. I can see that nature and her youth are helping her to forget it all, and would do so, no doubt, if Fitz never existed; but she is trying to resist the influence of nature, and to train herself to a state of mind which is simply ruinous and absurd."
 
So Lady Davyntry spoke to her brother that evening, and had the satisfaction of finding that she had acted wisely in so doing. '"Don't speak to her, Fitz," she said, towards the conclusion of their conversation; "don't give her the chance of being impelled by such feelings as she has acknowledged to me, to say no,--let her have time to think about it."
 
It was a position in which few men would have failed to look silly, that of talking over a love affair, in the ante-proposal stage, with a sister. But Mr. Baldwin was one of those men who never can be made to look silly, who have about them an inborn dignity and entire singleness of purpose which are effectual preservatives against the faintest touch of the ridiculous in their words or actions.
 
He had spoken frankly of his hopes, and of his grounds for entertaining them, but the account his sister gave of Margaret's state of mind troubled him sorely. Here Lady Davyntry again proved her possession of sounder sense than many who knew her only slightly would have believed she possessed.
 
"It won't last," she assured her brother; "it is a false, phantasmal state of feeling, and though it might grow more and more strong if nothing were opposed to it, it will disappear before a true and powerful feeling--rely upon it she will wonder at herself some day, and be hardly able to realise that she ever gave way to this sort of thing."
 
Mr. Baldwin wrote the letter, the answer to which was to mean so much to him; and Lady Davyntry enclosed it in a cover directed by herself.
 
"I don't think my darling Margaret can have much doubt about how I should regard this affair," she said, as she sealed the envelope with such a lavish use of sealing wax in the enthusiasm of the moment, that it swelled up all round the seal like liliputian pie-crust; "but whatever she may have teased herself with fancying, she will know it is all right when she sees that I enclose your letter. Some women might take it into their heads to be annoyed because you had spoken to another person of your feelings; but Margaret is too high-minded for anything of that sort, and, rely upon it, she will be none the less happy, if she promises to become your wife, that she will make me as happy in proportion as yourself by the promise."
 
At this stage, the impulsive Eleanor gave vent to her emotion by hugging her brother heartily, and accompanying the embrace with a shower of tears.
 
Margaret remained where James Dugdale had left her standing with Mr. Baldwin's letter in her hand. She did not break the seal, she did not move, for several minutes,--then she picked up Lady Davyntry's envelope, which had fluttered to the ground, and went into the house.
 
Any one not so innocently absentminded as Mr. Carteret, or so cheerfully full of harmless self-content of youth, health, and unaccustomed leisure as Haldane Carteret, could hardly have failed to notice that there was something strange in the looks and manner of two of the little party who sat down that day to the dinner table at Chayleigh, shorn of much of its formality since Mrs. Carteret had ceased to preside over it.
 
Margaret was paler than usual, but not with the pallor of ill-health--the clear skin had no sallowness in its tint.
 
To one accustomed to read the countenance which had acquired of late so much new expression, and such a softening of the old one, the indication of strong emotion would have been plain, in the pale cheek, the lustrous, downcast eye, the occasional trembling of the small lips, the absent, preoccupied gaze, the sudden recall of her attention to the present scene, the forced smile when her father spoke to her, and the unusual absence of interest and pleasure in Haldane's jokes, which were sometimes good, but always numerous.
 
James Dugdale sat at the table, quite silent, and did not even make any attempt to eat. Margaret, with the superior powers of hypocrisy observable in the female, affected, unnecessarily, to have a very good appetite. The meal was a painful probation for them.
 
It was so far from unusual for James to be ill and depressed, that when Haldane had commented upon his silence and his want of appetite in his usual off-hand fashion, and Mr. Carteret had lamented those misfortunes, and digressed into speculation whether James had not better have his dinner just before going to bed, because wild beasts gorge themselves with food, and go to sleep immediately afterwards,--no further notice was tak............