Page:The Yellow Book - 03.djvu/151

 whisper from the lips of treachery, suggested plausibly that after all Dorothy might have made a mistake; she repelled it fiercely, taking a savage pleasure in her pain, accusing herself, with vehement blame, as one who would fain stand in the way of her daughter's happiness. Even if she had deserved these fruits of late harvest which seemed to dangle within her grasp, even if her right to garner them had not been forfeited long ago by her folly of the past, how could she endure to figure as a rival, triumphing in her own daughter's discomfiture? Womanly pride and a thousand scruples barred the way.

"I love you," she heard him say again; "I believe I have always loved you since But you know how it was in the old days."

"Don't remind me of that!" she pleaded, almost fiercely; "I was—I can't bear to think of what I did! You ought not to forgive me; I don't deserve it."

"Forgive?" he echoed, blankly.

"Oh, you are generous—but it is impossible, impossible; it is all a mistake; let us forget it."

"I don't understand! Is it that—that you don't care for me?"

Margaret gave a despairing little sigh, dropping her hands on the sides of her chair.

"You don't know," she murmured. "It isn't right. No—oh, it must be No!"

Sir Geoffrey echoed her sigh. As he watched her silently, the instinct of long reticence making his forbearance natural, he saw a new expression dawn into her troubled face. Her eyes were fixed intently on the river; that they should be fixed was not strange, but there was a light of interest in them which induced Sir Geoffrey, half involuntarily, to bend his gaze in the same direction. He saw that Dorothy had now disembarked, and was