‘Certainly,’ said Margaret.  ’I shall like it, if you won’t be lonely without me, papa.’

’No, no!  I should always be fancying some one had known him, and that he had been stopped, unless you could tell me you had seen him off.  And go to the Outwood station.  It is quite as near, and not so many people about.  Take a cab there.  There is less risk of his being seen.  What time is your train, Fred?’

’Ten minutes past six; very nearly dark.  So what will you do, Margaret?’

’Oh, I can manage.  I am getting very brave and very hard. it is a well-lighted road all the way home, if it should be dark.  But I was out last week much later.’

Margaret was thankful when the parting was over—­the parting from the dead mother and the living father.  She hurried Frederick into the cab, in order to shorten a scene which she saw was so bitterly painful to her father, who would accompany his son as he took his last look at his mother.  Partly in consequence of this, and partly owing to one of the very common mistakes in the ‘Railway Guide’ as to the times when trains arrive at the smaller stations, they found, on reaching Outwood, that they had nearly twenty minutes to spare.  The booking-office was not open, so they could not even take the ticket.  They accordingly went down the flight of steps that led to the level of the ground below the railway.  There was a broad cinder-path diagonally crossing a field which lay along-side of the carriage-road, and they went there to walk backwards and forwards for the few minutes they had to spare.

Margaret’s hand lay in Frederick’s arm.  He took hold of it affectionately.

’Margaret!  I am going to consult Mr. Lennox as to the chance of exculpating myself, so that I may return to England whenever I choose, more for your sake than for the sake of any one else.  I can’t bear to think of your lonely position if anything should happen to my father.  He looks sadly changed—­terribly shaken.  I wish you could get him to think of the Cadiz plan, for manyreasons.  What could you do if he were taken away?  You have nofriend near.  We are curiously bare of relations.’

Margaret could hardly keep from crying at the tender anxiety with which Frederick was bringing before her an event which she herself felt was not very improbable, so severely had the cares of the last few months told upon Mr. Hale.  But she tried to rally as she said: 

’There have been such strange unexpected changes in my life during these last two years, that I feel more than ever that it is not worth while to calculate too closely what I should do if any future event took place.  I try to think only upon the present.’  She paused; they were standing still for a moment, close on the field side of the stile leading into the road; the setting sun fell on their faces.  Frederick held her hand in his, and looked with wistful anxiety into her face, reading there more care and trouble than she would betray by words.  She went on: