Page:Gaskell - North and South, vol. II, 1855.djvu/238

 "Death! Mr. Hale dead!"

"Ay; I keep saying it to myself, 'Hale is dead!' but it doesn't make it any the more real. Hale is dead for all that. He went to bed well, to all appearance, last night, and was quite cold this morning when my servant went to call him."

"Where? I don't understand!"

"At Oxford. He came to stay with me; hadn't been in Oxford this seventeen years—and this is the end of it."

Not one word was spoke for above a quarter of an hour. Then Mr. Thornton said:

"And she!" and stopped full short.

"Margaret you mean. Yes! I am going to tell her. Poor fellow! how full his thoughts were of her all last night! Good God! Last night only. And how immeasurably distant he is now! But I take Margaret as my child for his sake. I said last night I would take her for her own sake. Well, I take her for both."

Mr. Thornton made one or two fruitless attempts to speak, before he could get out the words:

"What will become of her!"

"I rather fancy there will be two people waiting for her: myself for one. I would take a live dragon into my house to live, if, by hiring such a chaperon, and setting up an establishment of my own, I could make my old age happy with having Margaret for a daughter. But there are those Lennoxes!"

"Who are they?" asked Mr. Thornton with trembling interest.

"Oh, smart London people, who very likely will