Page:Gaskell - North and South, vol. I, 1855.djvu/274

 looked like a lady, my dear," said Mr. Hale, quietly smiling.

But smiles were changed to white and trembling looks, when they saw Dixon's face, as she opened the door.

"Oh, master!—Oh, Miss Margaret! Thank God you are come! Dr. Donaldson is here. The servant next door went for him, for the charewoman is gone home. She's better now; but, oh sir! I thought she'd have died an hour ago."

Mr. Hale caught Margaret's arm to steady himself from falling. He looked at her face, and saw an expression upon it of surprise and extremest sorrow, but not the agony of terror that contracted his own unprepared heart. She knew more than he did, and yet she listened with that hopeless expression of awed apprehension.

"Oh! I should not have left her—wicked daughter that I am!" moaned forth Margaret, as she supported her trembling father's hasty steps upstairs. Dr. Donaldson met them on the landing.

"She is better now," he whispered. "The opiate has taken effect. The spasms were very bad: no wonder they frightened your maid; but she'll rally this time."

"This time! Let me go to her!" Half an hour ago, Mr. Hale was a middle-aged man; now his sight was dim, his senses wavering, his walk tottering, as if he were seventy years age.

Dr. Donaldson took his arm, and led him into the bedroom. Margaret followed close. There lay her mother, with an unmistakeable look on her face. She might be better now; she was sleeping, but