Margaret submitted to take the sedative draught sent by the medical man. She submitted, at Mrs. Austin’s request; but it seemed as if she scarcely understood why the medicine was offered to her. She was like a sleep-walker, whose brain is peopled by the creatures of a dream, and who has no consciousness of the substantial realities that surround him.
The draught Mr. Vincent had spoken of as a sedative turned out to be a very powerful opiate, and Margaret sank into a profound slumber about a quarter of an hour after taking the medicine.
Mrs. Austin went to Clement to carry him these good tidings.
“I shall sit up two or three hours, and see how the poor girl goes on, Clement,” the widow said; “but I hope you’ll go to bed; I know all this excitement has worn you out.”
“No, mother; I feel no sense of fatigue.”
“But you will try to get some rest, to please me? See, dear boy, it’s already nearly twelve o’clock.”
“Yes, if you wish it, mother, I’ll go to my room,” Mr. Austin answered, quickly.
His room was near those occupied by his mother and Margaret, much nearer than the sitting-room. He bade Mrs. Austin good night and left her; but he had no thought of going to bed, or even trying to sleep. He went to his own room, and walked up and down; going out into the corridor every now and then, to listen at the door of his mother’s chamber.
He heard nothing. Some time between two and three o’clock Mrs. Austin opened the door of her room, and found her son lingering in the corridor.
“Is she still asleep, mother?” he asked.
“Yes, and she is sleeping very calmly. I am going to bed now; pray try to get some sleep yourself, Clem.”
“I will, mother.”
Clement returned to his room. He was thankful, as he thought that sleep would bring tranquillity and relief to Margaret’s overwrought brain. He went to bed and fell asleep, for he was exhausted by the fatigue of the day and the anxiety of the night. Poor Clement fell asleep, and dreamt that he met Margaret Wilmot by moonlight in the park around Maudesley Abbey, walking with a DEAD MAN, whose face was strange to him. This was the last of many dreams, all more or less grotesque or horrible, but none so vivid or distinct as this. The end of the vision woke Clement with a sudden shock, and he opened his eyes upon the cold morning light, which seemed especially cold in this chamber at the Reindeer, where the paper on the walls was of the palest grey, and every curtain or drapery of a spotless white.
Clement lost no time over his toilet. He looked at his watch while dressing, and found that it was between seven and eight. It wanted a quarter to eight when he left his room, and went to his mother’s door to inquire about Margaret. He knocked softly, but there was no answer; then he tried the door, and finding it unlocked, opened it a few inches with a cautious hand, and listened to his mother’s regular breathing.
“She is asleep, poor soul,” he thought. “I won’t disturb her, for she must want rest after sitting up half last night.”
Clement closed the door as noiselessly as he had opened it, and then went slowly to the sitting-room. There was a struggling fire in the shining grate; and the indefatigable waiter, who refused to believe in the extinction of mail-coaches, had laid the breakfast apparatus — frosty-looking white-and-blue cups and saucers on a snowy cloth, a cut-glass cream-jug that looked as if it had been made out of ice, and a brazen urn in the last stage of polish. The breakfast service was harmoniously adapted to the season, and eminently calculated to produce a fit of shivering in the sojourner at the Reindeer.
But Clement Austin did not bestow so much as one glance upon the breakfast-table. He hurried to the bow-window, where Margaret Wilmot was sitting, neatly dressed in her morning garments, with her shawl on, and her bonnet lying on a chair near her.
“Margaret!” exclaimed Clement, as he approached the place where Joseph Wilmot’s daughter was sitting; “my dear Margaret, why did you get up so early this morning, when you so much need rest?”
The girl rose and looked at her lover with a grave and quiet earnestness of expression; but her face was quite as colourless as it had been upon the previous night, and her lips trembled a little as she spoke to Clement.
“I have had sufficient rest,” she said, in a low, tremulous voice; “I got up early because — because — I am going away.”
Her two hands had been hanging loosely amongst the fringes of her shawl; she lifted them now, and linked her fingers together with a convulsive motion; but she never withdrew her eyes from Clement’s face, and her glance never faltered as she looked at him.
“Going away, Margaret?” the cashier cried; “going away — to-day — this morning?”
“Yes, by the half-past nine o’clock train.”
“Margaret, you must be mad to talk of such a thing.”
“No,” the girl answered, slowly; “that is the strangest thing of all — I am not mad. I am going away, Clement — Mr. Austin. I wished to avoid seeing you. I meant to have written to you to tell you ——”
“To tell me what, Margaret?” asked Clement. “Is it I who am going mad; or am I dreaming all this?”
“It is no dream, Mr. Austin. My letter would have only told you the truth. I am going away from here because I can never be your wife.”
“You can never be my wife! Why not, Margaret?”
“I cannot tell you the reason.”
“But you shall tell me, Margaret!” cried Clement, passionately. “I will accept no sentence such as this until I know the reason for pronouncing it; I will suffer no imaginary barrier to stand between you and me. There is some mystery, some mystification in all this, Margaret; some woman’s fancy, which a few words of explanation would set at rest. Margaret, my pearl! do you think I will consent to lose you so lightly? My own dear love! do you know me so little as to think that I will part with you? My love is a stronger passion than you think, Madge; and the bondage you accepted when you promised to be my wife is a bondage that cannot so easily be shaken off!”
Margaret watched her lover’s face with melancholy, tearless eyes.
“Fate is stronger than love, Clement,” she said, mournfully, “I can never be your wife!”
“Why not?”
“For a reason which you can never know.”
“Margaret, I will not submit ——”
“You must submit,” the girl said, holding up her hand, as if to stop her lover’s passionate words. “You must submit, Clement. This world seems very hard sometimes, so hard that in a dreadful interval of dull despair the heavens are hidden from us, and we cannot recognize the Eternal wisdom guiding the hand that afflicts us. My life seems very hard to me to-day, Clement. Do not try to make it harder. I am a most unhappy woman; and in all the world there is only one favour you can grant me. Let me go away unquestioned; and blot my image from your heart for ever when I am gone.”
“I will never consent to let you go,” Clement Austin answered, resolutely. “You are mine by right of your own most sacred promise, Margaret. No womanish folly shall part us.”
“Heaven knows it is no woman’s folly that parts us, Clement,” the girl answered, in a plaintive, tremulous voice.
“What is it, then, Margaret?”
“I can never tell you.”
“You will change your mind.”
“Never.”
She looked at him with an air of quiet resolution stamped upon her colourless face.
Clement remembered what the doctor had said of his patient’s iron will. Was it possible that Mr. Vincent had been right? Was this gentle girl’s resolution to overrule a strong man’s passionate vehemence?
“What is it that can part us, Margaret?” Mr. Austin cried. “What is it? You saw Mr. Dunbar yesterday?”
The girl shuddered, and over her colourless face there came a livid shade, which was more deathlike than the marble whiteness that had preceded it.
“Yes,” Margaret Wilmot said, after a pause. “I was — very fortunate. I gained admission to — Mr. Dunbar’s rooms.”
“And you spoke to him?”
“Yes.”
“Did your interview with him confirm or dissipate your suspicions? Do you still believe that Henry Dunbar murdered your unhappy father?”
“No,” answered Margaret, resolutely; “I do not.”
“You do not? The banker’s manner convinced you of his innocence, then?”
“I do not believe that Henry Dunbar murdered my — my unhappy father.”<............