'Then proudly, proudly up she rose,Tho' the tear was in her e'e,"Whate'er ye say, think what ye may,Ye's get na word frae me!"'SCOTCH BALLAD. It was not merely that Margaret was known to Mr. Thornton to have spoken falsely,--though she imagined that for this reason only was she so turned in his opinion,--but that this falsehood of hers bore a distinct reference in his mind to some other lover. He could not forget the fond and earnest look that had passed between her and some other man--the attitude of familiar confidence, if not of positive endearment. The thought of this perpetually stung him; it was a picture before his eyes, wherever he went and whatever he was doing. In addition to this (and he ground his teeth as he remembered it), was the hour, dusky twilight; the place, so far away from home, and comparatively unfrequented. His nobler self had said at first, that all this last might be accidental, innocent, justifiable; but once allow her right to love and be beloved (and had he any reason to deny her right?--had not her words been severely explicit when she cast his love away from her?), she might easily have been beguiled into a longer walk, on to a later hour than she had anticipated. But that falsehood! which showed a fatal consciousness of something wrong, and to be concealed, which was unlike her. He did her that justice, though all the time it would have been a relief to believe her utterly unworthy of his esteem. It was this that made the misery--that he passionately loved her, and thought her, even with all her faults, more lovely and more excellent than any other woman; yet he deemed her so attached to some other man, so led away by her affection for him as to violate her truthful nature. The very falsehood that stained her, was a proof how blindly she loved another--this dark, slight, elegant, handsome man--while he himself was rough, and stern, and strongly made. He lashed himself into an agony of fierce jealousy. He thought of that look, that attitude!--how he would have laid his life at her feet for such tender glances, such fond detention!
He mocked at himself, for having valued the mechanical way in which she had protected him from the fury of the mob; now he had seen how soft and bewitching she looked when with a man she really loved. He remembered, point by point, the sharpness of her words--'There was not a man in all that crowd for whom she would not have done as much, far more readily than for him.' He shared with the mob, in her desire of averting bloodshed from them; but this man, this hidden lover, shared with nobody; he had looks, words, hand-cleavings, lies, concealment, all to himself. Mr. Thornton was conscious that he had never been so irritable as he was now, m all his life long; he felt inclined to give a short abrupt answer, more like a bark than a speech, to every one that asked him a question;and this consciousness hurt his pride he had always piqued himself on his self-control, and control himself he would. So the manner was subdued to a quiet deliberation, but the matter was even harder and sterner than common.
He was more than usually silent at home; employing his evenings in a continual pace backwards and forwards, which would have annoyed his mother exceedingly if it had been practised by any one else; and did not tend to promote any forbearance on her part even to this beloved son. 'Can you stop--can you sit down for a moment? I have something to say to you, if you would give up that everlasting walk, walk, walk.' He sat down instantly, on a chair against the wall. 'I want to speak to you about Betsy. She says she must leave us; that her lover's death has so affected her spirits she can't give her heart to her work.' 'Very well. I suppose other cooks are to be met with.' 'That's so like a man. It's not merely the cooking, it is that she knows all the ways of the house. Besides, she tells me something about your friend Miss Hale.' 'Miss Hale is no friend of mine. Mr. Hale is my friend.' 'I am glad to hear you say so, for if she had been your friend, what Betsy says would have annoyed you.' 'Let me hear it,' said he, with the extreme quietness of manner he had been assuming for the last few days. 'Betsy says, that the night on which her lover--I forget his name--for she always calls him "he"----' 'Leonards.' 'The night on which Leonards was last seen at the station--when he was last seen on duty, in fact--Miss Hale was there, walking about with a young man who, Betsy believes, killed Leonards by some blow or push.' 'Leonards was not killed by any blow or push.' 'How do you know?' 'Because I distinctly put the question to the surgeon of the Infirmary.
He told me there was an internal disease of long standing, caused by Leonards'
habit of drinking to excess; that the fact of his becoming rapidly worse while in a state of intoxication, settled the question as to whether the last fatal attack was caused by excess of drinking, or the fall.' 'The fall! What fall?' 'Caused by the blow or push of which Betsy speaks.' 'Then there was a blow or push?' 'I believe so.' 'And who did it?' 'As there was no inquest, in consequence of the doctor's opinion, I cannot tell you.' 'But Miss Hale was there?' No answer. 'And with a young man?' Still no answer. At last he said: 'I tell you, mother, that there was no inquest--no inquiry. No judicial inquiry, I mean.' 'Betsy says that Woolmer (some man she knows, who is in a grocer's shop out at Crampton) can swear that Miss Hale was at the station at that hour, walking backwards and forwards with a young man.' 'I don't see what we have to do with that. Miss Hale is at liberty to please herself.' 'I'm glad to hear you say so,' said Mrs. Thornton, eagerly. 'It certainly signifies very little to us--not at all to you, after what has passed!