’Tell her to mind her own business the next time, instead of taking up your time and mine too.  I believe women are at the bottom of every plague in this world.  Be off with you.’

‘I’m obleeged to yo’ for a’ yo’r kindness, measter, and most of a’ for yo’r civil way o’ saying good-bye.’

Mr. Thornton did not deign a reply.  But, looking out of the window a minute after, he was struck with the lean, bent figure going out of the yard:  the heavy walk was in strange contrast with the resolute, clear determination of the man to speak to him.  He crossed to the porter’s lodge: 

‘How long has that man Higgins been waiting to speak to me?’

’He was outside the gate before eight o’clock, sir.  I think he’s been there ever since.’

‘And it is now—?’

‘Just one, sir.’

‘Five hours,’ thought Mr. Thornton; ’it’s a long time for a man to wait, doing nothing but first hoping and then fearing.’

CHAPTER XXXIX

MAKING FRIENDS

’Nay, I have done; you get no more of me: 
And I am glad, yea glad with all my heart,
That thus so clearly I myself am free.’ 
Drayton.

Margaret shut herself up in her own room, after she had quitted Mrs. Thornton.  She began to walk backwards and forwards, in her old habitual way of showing agitation; but, then, remembering that in that slightly-built house every step was heard from one room to another, she sate down until she heard Mrs. Thornton go safely out of the house.  She forced herself to recollect all the conversation that had passed between them; speech by speech, she compelled her memory to go through with it.  At the end, she rose up, and said to herself, in a melancholy tone: 

’At any rate, her words do not touch me; they fall off from me; for I am innocent of all the motives she attributes to me.  But still, it is hard to think that any one—­any woman—­can believe all this of another so easily.  It is hard and sad.  Where I have done wrong, she does not accuse me—­she does not know.  He never told her:  I might have known he would not!’

She lifted up her head, as if she took pride in any delicacy of feeling which Mr. Thornton had shown.  Then, as a new thought came across her, she pressed her hands tightly together.

‘He, too, must take poor Frederick for some lover.’ (She blushed as the word passed through her mind.) ’I see it now.  It is not merely that he knows of my falsehood, but he believes that some one else cares for me; and that I——­Oh dear!—­oh dear!  What shall I do?  What do I mean?  Why do I care what he thinks, beyond the mere loss of his good opinion as regards my telling the truth or not?  I cannot tell.  But I am very miserable!  Oh, how unhappy this last year has been!  I have passed out of childhood into old age.  I have had no youth—­no womanhood; the hopes of womanhood have closed for