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CHAPTER 9.

MAYNARD returned to England to leave it again on a scientific expedition which was to occupy him far from home, for at least twelve months. During this time he heard nothing of his young friend at Rome. Margaret, after his departure, resuming the usual course of her life, at once artistic and devotional, betrayed to the watchful eye of her nurse, no evidence of change such as might be looked for in a girl after being so much in the society of a man whom she highly esteemed, and who showed her so much regard. And the good dame, while acknowledging to herself the relief it was to have no complication of her responsibilities, yet sighed as she thought of future possibilities, and said to herself, –

‘I don’t know if Mr. James thinks of such a thing, but she certainly does not dream about a future for herself. And I doubt if she ever will. She is not one of the common sort. The society of girls of her own age is what she ought to have; and I have a great mind to let his Lordship know it.’

Margaret clearly had no thought of James in any of the ordinary human capacities. Her having known him more or less all her life was against that. Familiarity may breed affection, but love is a sudden blow. She had come to regard him as a sort of meteoric friend, whose orbit brought him occasionally into contact with her sphere; and whom she always received with pleasure and parted from without regret. Had she been in the habit of analysing her relations with others, she would have discovered that the difference of their natures was so great as to make mutual sympathy in anything beyond mere intellectual respects impossible.

Several months passed after Maynard’s departure from Rome, before the dame finally determined to write to Lord

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Littmass. Margaret’s health had given way under the heats of summer, and she had in her lassitude conceived an overpowering weariness of life, and the longing to retire into a convent, to pray or to die, took irresistible hold of her. The nuns who at her entreaty came to see her, served, by their gentle kindness and apparent content with their lot, to strengthen her desire; and she prevailed on her nurse to write and ask her guardian’s permission to enter a convent at least for a time. The dame would have been in despair, but for a faint hope that the reply would be a summons to return to England. To her inexpressible distress, a letter and a messenger arrived from Lord Littmass, saying that the measure had his full concurrence, and that under the advice and by the influence of an eminent Roman Catholic prelate, Miss Waring would at once enter a Carmelite Convent in the centre of France.

It was useless for the old woman to meditate opposition to this mandate. Lord Littmass had evidently sent his agent to see the step carried out; and Margaret, though greatly disappointed at being unable to stay with the friends she had already made, so longed to carry her plan into execution, that she would not hear of any delay or remonstrance. It was November when they left Rome for France, and the dame, half broken-hearted, but somewhat comforted at the kindly demeanour of the Lady Superior, took leave of Margaret at the convent door, and returned to England.

It was in the early spring that the Bishop whose influence had gained her admission, called to visit the convent. Imagining from Lord Littmass’s manner that he really had his ward’s good at heart, he inquired for Margaret, and was shocked at the condition to which she was reduced. Believing that he was doing a friendly act by Lord Littmass, and moved also by a feeling of humanity, he sent for an eminent medical man of the neighbourhood to consult him about her. The church was powerful in the provinces of France, whatever it might have been in the Capital. The doctor looked wistfully at her, and felt her pulse; sounded her heart, her lungs; asked her a few questions in a tone so low as not to be overheard, and then glanced toward the Bishop, who was standing and talking with the Lady Superior.

‘Well, and what do you make out her complaint to be?’ asked his reverence.

‘I should prefer prescribing without committing myself on

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that head,’ answered the doctor with a look which the Bishop seemed to understand, for he at once turned to the Lady Superior, and said, –

‘I will not detain you from your sacred duties longer, Sister; leave us here and we will rejoin you shortly.’

With ill-suppressed reluctance she left the cell, and the Bishop said, –

‘And what do you prescribe?’

‘Instant return to her home and friends.’

‘No medicine?’

‘Beef-steak and port wine three times a day, and air, exercise, and sleep, at discretion.’

‘Why, what is her disease?’

‘Have I your lordship’s safeguard?’

‘Most certainly.’

‘She has a complication of diseases, any one of which must kill her if not arrested at once.’

‘And they are –––?’

‘Cold, starvation, and dirt.’

The Bishop, glad to return his obligation to Lord Littmass, who had entertained him nobly when in England, took upon himself to send Margaret to the doctor’s own house to be taken good care of, and wrote to tell her guardian what he had done, and to urge her immediate return home. Lord Littmass, who thought that he had got rid of her for ever, concealed his chagrin, thanked the Bishop warmly, and dispatched Dame Partridge to bring Margaret home.

They came by slow stages, halting often on the way; and when they reached England, the poor girl had made considerable progress in regaining her health and strength. Lord Littmass was absent from London, and she lived quietly at his house under the superintendence of her kind old nurse, nourished by good food, and the fresh air of the Park, with nought to disturb or retard her recovery.

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