Page:Gaskell - North and South, vol. II, 1855.djvu/111

 Mr. Hale, I mean. He will perhaps admit me after to-morrow or so."

He spoke as if the answer were a matter of indifference to him. But it was not so. For all his pain, he longed to see the author of it. Although he hated Margaret at times, when he thought of that gentle familiar attitude and all the attendant circumstances, he had a restless desire to renew her picture in his mind—a longing for the very atmosphere she breathed. He was in the Charybdis of passion, and must perforce circle and circle ever nearer round the fatal centre.

"I dare say, sir, master will see you. He was very sorry to have to deny you the other day; but circumstances was not agreeable just then."

For some reason or other, Dixon never named this interview that she had had with Mr. Thornton to Margaret. It might have been mere chance, but so it was that Margaret never heard that he had attended her poor mother's funeral.