Margaret used to sing, but not like this.  Every note was like a winged soul rising out of prison.  He had never heard such a voice before.  No wonder that Mrs. Hart had said that she could sing, and no wonder that this sick girl wanted to hear it.  By the way, this was one of the good works, of course!

    “Rest to the weary spirit,
    Peace to the quiet dead,”

repeated Ailie as the song died away.  “He never came, Margaret, and he never will come to me.  It may be wicked, but I could die gladly if I could see him first and know that he had not betrayed me.  It is terrible to lie drifting out into the dark without a word from him!”

“Dear Ailie, why do you make me sing this wretched song?  Why do you try to dwell on the thought of faithless loves?  Have patience a little; your letters may yet find him.”

“Too late.  In time for him to drop a tear over my grave and tell you that he never meant to hurt me,” cried the girl hysterically.  “Oh, Margaret!  Why do I tell you all the anguish that eats upon my heart?  If you could only know the comfort you are to me! the blessed relief of lying in your arms and telling you what nobody else could forgive or understand!  You are the best person I know, and yet you never make me feel myself lost beyond redemption.”

“You are talking nonsense, darling,” said the voice of the very dull person.

“Am I, you pearl of womanhood?  What would you say if I told you all the fancies I have about you?  Ah, Margaret, I do not want to know that you have had your heart broken by a false lover!”

“My dear, I was always a plain and unattractive person, just as I am at this day,” answered Margaret in a voice of infinite gentleness.  “But why should you not know?  There are more faithless than faithful lovers, may be; the one I had grew tired of so dull a person and he went away.  That was all.”

Then the two women moved away towards the house and the garden lay in silence.

Mark Ratcliff sat stiff with astonishment.

“By Jove!” he exclaimed at last.  “She flings all the blame on me!  The whole treachery was hers, and this is positively the coolest thing that ever I heard.  Faithless lover, indeed!  When she dismissed me with actual insult!  But a woman with such a voice might do almost anything, you plain and unattractive Miss Mildmay!”

He lit another cigar, rose in leisurely fashion and sought the way to the front entrances of the villas.  Under the shade of the horse-chestnuts, which his critical eye decided to be, like himself and Margaret, approaching the season of the sere and yellow leaf, he loitered, smoking and watching, and counting up the years since he had waited and watched for the same person before.

At last the right door opened and down the steps came a very sober-looking and unconscious lady.  She was thinking of nothing but the dying girl from whom she had just parted.