CHAPTER 15.

 

            AS NOEL re-entered the house, he was met by Margaret, still dressed as she had been for the fête, although the night was now far advanced. With a hurried step, and anxious questioning face, she advanced to meet him.

 

            ‘He is all right,’ said Noel, divining her thought; and taking her by the hand, and leaving her towards the room where Maynard was, he inquired, –

 

            ‘How came he to be out in the forest so late?’

 

            ‘Ah, you don’t know. I never told any one of our real life. I wished to make him always appear to others as excellent as he really is, – but – but you must know now that he sometimes has fits of anger and rape with me, for what he deems my coldness and indifference, when he declares that he will separate from me altogether, as he does now for months and months at a time, saying that I am no real wife to him, and only mechanical mother of his children. And then he rushes away, and stays all night in the forest; and to-night he was angry with me for a discovery that he said he had made; – he said I had deceived him, and that he knows now that I can love.’ And here her face lit up with a sad, wan, yet angelic smile, that made Noel vow to himself, that he would never seek or do aught that might bring one shade of self-reproach to darken it.

 

            ‘But what has happened?’ she continued; ‘and how came you up so late? I fell asleep as I am, and I had such a dreadful dream. I thought that he would have been killed, and you saved him ––’

 

            ‘You really dreamt that?’

 

            ‘Yes; and my dreams are so often like reality, that I awake in fright ––’

 

(p. 276)

            ‘But this one was nearly real. What did you see in it?’

 

            ‘Has he been injured, and were you in any danger?’

 

            ‘Well, there was some little risk, but neither of us are any the worse now. We thought it better for him to lie down in my room than to disturb you. I don’t doubt you will find him sleeping soundly if you peep in.’

 

            ‘Thank God!’ she ejaculated. ‘But if he is asleep, it must have happened some time ago, and you have only just come in.’

 

            ‘Yes. I brought him home, and then went out to look round and see that there are no more Mexicans hovering about. The servants are on the watch, so that you need not be uneasy.’

 

            And opening the door of his room, where he had left a light burning, he pointed to Maynard, faster asleep, probably, than he had been for years.

 

            Margaret turned a grateful look upon Noel, and gliding noiselessly in, seated herself beside the bed. There she sat and watched until morning, while Noel passed the interval upon a sofa in the drawing-room, meditating on Margaret, and on their love; rejoicing at having done something to prove his sincerity and disinterestedness, and pondering whether it might yet be possible to secure her happiness and Maynard’s, by means of any sacrifice of himself, until he at length fell asleep.

 

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