“By George, though,” he broke out presently, “’tis plaguey strange Margaret should grow so active in loyalty!  I never knew her zeal to be very great for any cause of a public nature.  ’Tisn’t like her; rabbit me if it is!”

“Why,” quoth I, “maybe it’s for her own purposes, after all—­the reward and the glory.  You know the pleasure she takes in shining.”

“Egad, that’s true enough!” And Tom’s face cleared again.

Alas, I knew better!  Besides the motive I had mentioned, there had been another to stimulate her wits and industry—­the one her words, overheard by me alone, had betrayed too surely—­the desire of enriching and advancing Captain Falconer.  Well, she was not the first woman, nor has been the last, scheming to pour wealth and honour into a man’s lap, partly out of the mere joy of pleasing him, partly in hope of binding him by gratitude, partly to make him seem in the world’s eyes the worthier her devotion, and so to lessen her demerit if that devotion be unlawful.

“Poor Philip!” thought I.  “Poor Philip!  And what will be the end of this?”

CHAPTER XI.

Winwood Comes to See His Wife.

’T were scarce possible to exaggerate the eagerness with which Margaret looked forward to the execution of the great project.  Her anticipations, in the intensity and entirety with which they possessed her, equalled those with which she had formerly awaited the trip to England.  She was now as oblivious of the festivities arising from the army’s presence, as she had been of the town’s tame pleasures on the former occasion.  She showed, to us who had the key to her mind, a deeper abstraction, a more anxious impatience, a keener foretaste (in imagination) of the triumphs our success would bring her.  Her favourable expectations, of course, seesawed with fears of failure; and sometimes there was preserved a balance that afflicted her with a most irritating uncertainty, revealed by petulant looks and tones.  But by force of will, ’twas mainly in the hope of success that she passed the few days between our meeting in the glade and the appointed Wednesday evening.

“Tut, sister,” warned Tom, with kind intention, “don’t raise yourself so high with hope, or you may fall as far with disappointment.”

“Never fear, Tom; we can’t fail.”

“It looks all clear and easy, I allow,” said he; “but there’s many a slip, remember!”

“Not two such great slips to the same person,” she replied.  “I had my share of disappointment, when I couldn’t go to London.  This war, and my stars, owe me a good turn, dear.”

But when, at dusk on Wednesday evening, Tom and I took leave of her in the hall, she was trembling like a person with a chill.  Her eyes glowed upon us beseechingly, as if she implored our Herculean endeavours in the attempt now to be made.