Page:Gaskell - North and South, vol. I, 1855.djvu/309

 She was very silent and trembling while she made tea. She was thankful to see her father so much occupied with her mother as not to notice her looks. Even after her mother went to bed, he was not content to be absent from her, but undertook to read her to sleep. Margaret was alone.

"Now I will think of it—now I will remember it all. I could not before—I dared not." She sat still in her chair, her hands clasped on her knees, her lips compressed, her eyes fixed as one who sees a vision. She drew a deep breath.

"I, who hate scenes—I, who have despised people for showing emotion—who have thought them wanting in self-control—I went down and must needs throw myself into the mêlée, like a romantic fool ! Did I do any good? They would have gone away without me, I dare say." But this was over-leaping the rational conclusion,—as in an instant her well-poised judgment felt. "No, perhaps they would not. I did some good. But what possessed me to defend that man as if he were a helpless child! Ah!" said she, clenching her hands together, "it is no wonder those people thought I was in love with him, after disgracing myself in that way. I in love—and with him too!" Her pale cheeks suddenly became one flame of fire; and she covered her face with her hands. When she took them away, her palms were wet with scalding tears.

"Oh how low I am fallen that they should say that of me! I could not have been so brave for any one else, just because he was so utterly indifferent to me—if, indeed, I do not positively dislike him. It made me the more anxious that there should be