Page:Gaskell - North and South, vol. II, 1855.djvu/38

 Margaret went into her mother's room. Mrs. Hale lifted herself up from a doze.

"When did you write to Frederick, Margaret? Yesterday, or the day before?"

"Yesterday, mamma."

"Yesterday. And the letter went?"

"Yes. I took it myself."

"Oh, Margaret, I'm so afraid of his coming! If he should be recognised! If he should be taken! If he should be executed, after all these years that he has kept away and lived in safety! I keep falling asleep and dreaming that he is caught and being tried."

"Oh, mamma, don't be afraid. There will be some risk no doubt; but we will lessen it as much as ever we can. And it is so little! Now, if we were at Helstone, there would be twenty—a hundred times as much. There, everybody would remember him; and if there was a stranger known to be in the house, they would be sure to guess it was Frederick; while here, nobody knows or cares for us enough to notice what we do. Dixon will keep the door like a dragon—won't you, Dixon—while he is here?"

"They'll be clever if they come in past me!" said Dixon, showing her teeth at the bare idea.

"And he need not go out, except in the dusk, poor fellow!"

"Poor fellow!" echoed Mrs. Hale. "But I almost wish you had not written. Would it be too late to stop him if you wrote again, Margaret?"

"I'm afraid it would, mamma," said Margaret, remembering the urgency with which she had entreated him to come directly, if he wished to see his mother alive.