’Oh, papa! he really is a man you will not dislike—­if you won’t be shocked to begin with.’

’But, Margaret, to bring a drunken man home—­and your mother so ill!’

Margaret’s countenance fell.  ’I am sorry, papa.  He is very quiet—­he is not tipsy at all.  He was only rather strange at first, but that might be the shock of poor Bessy’s death.’  Margaret’s eyes filled with tears.  Mr. Hale took hold of her sweet pleading face in both his hands, and kissed her forehead.

’It is all right, dear.  I’ll go and make him as comfortable as I can, and do you attend to your mother.  Only, if you can come in and make a third in the study, I shall be glad.’

‘Oh, yes—­thank you.’  But as Mr. Hale was leaving the room, she ran after him: 

’Papa—­you must not wonder at what he says:  he’s an——­I mean he does not believe in much of what we do.’

‘Oh dear! a drunken infidel weaver!’ said Mr. Hale to himself, in dismay.  But to Margaret he only said, ’If your mother goes to sleep, be sure you come directly.’

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.

‘I always dislike that doing things in such a hurry,’ said Mrs. Hale.

Margaret was silent.