Page:Gaskell - North and South, vol. II, 1855.djvu/221

 No answer at first; but by-and-by a little gentle reluctant "Yes."

"And you refused him?"

A long sigh; a more helpless, nerveless attitude, and another "Yes." But before her father could speak, Margaret lifted up her face, rosy with some beautiful shame, and, fixing her eyes upon him, said:

"Now, papa, I have told you this, and I cannot tell you more; and then the whole thing is so painful to me; every word and action connected with it is so unspeakably bitter, that I cannot bear to think of it. Oh, papa, I am sorry to have lost you this friend, but I could not help it—but oh! I am very sorry." She sate down on the ground, and laid her head on his knees.

"I too, am sorry, my dear. Mr. Bell quite startled me when he said, some idea of the kind—"

"Mr. Bell! Oh did Mr. Bell see it?"

"A little; but he took it into his head that you—how shall I say it?—that you were not ungraciously disposed towards Mr. Thornton, I knew that could never be. I hoped the whole thing was but an imagination; but I knew too well what your real feelings were to suppose that you could ever like Mr. Thornton in that way. But I am very sorry."

They were very quiet and still for some minutes. But, on stroking her cheek in a caressing way soon after, he was almost shocked to find her face wet with tears. As he touched her, she sprang up, and smiling with forced brightness, began to talk of the Lennoxes with such a vehement desire to turn the conversation, that Mr. Hale was too tender-hearted to try to force it back into the old channel.