Chapter 30

The house-party at Hilcrest was not an entire success that Christmas. Even the guests felt a subtle something in the air that was not conducive to ease; while Mrs. Merideth and her brothers were plainly fighting a losing contest against a restlessness that sent a haunting fear to their eyes.

Margaret, though scrupulously careful to show every attention to the guests that courtesy demanded, was strangely quiet, and not at all like the merry, high-spirited girl that most of them knew. Brandon, who was again at the house, sought her out one day, and said low in her ear:

"If it were June and not December, and if we were out in the auto instead of here by the fire, I'm wondering; would I need to�watch out for those brakes?"

The girl winced.

"No, no," she cried; "never! I think I should simply crawl for fear that under the wheels somewhere would be a child, a dog, a chicken, or even a helpless worm�something that moved and that I might hurt. There is already so much�suffering!"

Brandon laughed uneasily and drew back, a puzzled frown on his face. He had not meant that she should take his jest so seriously.

It was on the day after New Year's, when all the guests had gone, that Margaret once more said to her guardian that she wished to speak to him, and on business. Frank Spencer told himself that he was used to this sort of thing now, and that he was resigned to the inevitable; but his eyes were troubled, and his lips were close-shut as he motioned the girl to precede him into the den.

"I thought I ought to tell you," she began, plunging into her subject with an abruptness that betrayed her nervousness, "I thought I ought to tell you at once that I�I cannot go with you when you all go away next week."

"You cannot go with us!"

"No. I must stay here."

"Here! Why, Margaret, child, that is impossible!�here in this great house with only the servants?"

"No, no, you don't understand; not here at Hilcrest. I shall be down in the town�with Patty."

"Margaret!" The man was too dismayed to say more.

"I know, it seems strange to you, of course" rejoined the girl, hastily; "but you will see�you will understand when I explain. I have thought of it in all its bearings, and it is the only way. I could not go with you and sing and laugh and dance, and all the while remember that my people back here were suffering."

"Your people! Dear child, they are not your people nor my people; they are their own people. They come and go as they like. If not in my mills, they work in some other man's mills. You are not responsible for their welfare. Besides, you have already done more for their comfort and happiness than any human being could expect of you!"

"I know, but you do not understand. It is in a peculiar way that they are my people�not because they are here, but because they are poor and unhappy." Margaret hesitated, and then went on, her eyes turned away from her guardian's face. "I don't know as I can make you understand�as I do. There are people, lots of them, who are generous and kind to the poor. But they are on one side of the line, and the poor are on the other. They merely pass things over the line�they never go themselves. And that is all right. They could not cross the line if they wanted to, perhaps. They would not know how. All their lives they have been surrounded with tender care and luxury; they do not know what it means to be hungry and cold and homeless. They do not know what it means to fight the world alone with only empty hands."

Margaret paused, her eyes still averted; then suddenly she turned and faced the man sitting in silent dismay at the desk.

"Don't you see?" she cried. "I have crossed the line. I crossed it long ago when I was a little girl. I do know what it means to be hungry and cold and homeless. I do know what it means to fight the world with only two small empty hands. In doing for these people I am doing for my own. They are my people."

For a moment there was silence in the little room. To the man at the desk the bottom seemed suddenly to have dropped out of his world. For some time it had been growing on him�the knowledge of how much the presence of this fair-haired, winsome girl meant to him. It came to him now with the staggering force of a blow in the face�and she was going away. To Frank Spencer the days suddenly stretched ahead in empty uselessness�there seemed to be nothing left worth while.

"But, my dear Margaret," he said at last, unsteadily, "we tried�we all tried to make you forget those terrible days. You were so keenly sensitive�they weighed too heavily on your heart. You�you were morbid, my dear."

"I know," she said. "I understand better now. Every one tried to interest me, to amuse me, to make me forget. I was kept from everything unpleasant, and from everybody that suffered. It comes to me very vividly now, how careful every one was that I should know of only happiness."

"We wanted you to forget."

"But I never did forget�quite. Even when years and years had passed, and I could go everywhere and see all the beautiful things and places I had read about, and when I was with my friends, there was always something, somewhere, behind things. Those four years in New York were vague and elusive, as time passed. They seemed like a dream, or like a life that some one else had lived. But I know now; they were not a dream, and they were not a life that some one else lived. They were my life. I lived them myself. Don't you see�now?" Margaret's eyes were luminous with feeling. Her lips trembled; but her face glowed with a strange exaltation of happiness.

"But what�do you mean�to do?" faltered the man.

Margaret flushed and leaned forward eagerly.

"I am going to do all that I can, and I hope it will be a great deal. I am going down there to live."

"To live�not to live, child!"

"Yes. Oh, I know now," she went on hurriedly. "I have been among them. Some are wicked and some are thoughtless, but all of them need teaching. I am going to live there among them, to show them the better way."

The man at the desk left his chair abruptly. He walked over to the window and looked out. The moon shone clear and bright in the sky. Down in the valley the countless gleaming windows and the tall black chimneys showed where the mill-workers still toiled�those mill-workers whom the man had come almost to hate: it was because of them that Margaret was going! He turned slowly and walked back to the girl.

"Margaret," he began in a voice that shook a little, "I had not thought to speak of this�at least, not now. Perhaps it would be better if I never spoke of it; but I am almost forced to say it now. I can't let you go like this, and not�know. I must make one effort to keep you.... If you knew that there was some one here who loved you�who loved you with the whole strength of his being, and if you knew that to him your going meant everything that was loneliness and grief, would you�could you�stay?"

Margaret started. She would not look into the eyes that were so earnestly seeking hers. It was of Ned, of course, that he was speaking. Of that she was sure. In some way he had discovered Ned's feeling for her, had perhaps even been asked to plead his cause with her.

"Did you ever think," began Spencer again, softly, "did you ever think that if you did stay, you might find even here some one to whom you could show�the better way? That even here you might do all these things you long to do, and with some one close by your side to help you?"

Margaret thought of Ned, of his impulsiveness, his light-heartedness, his utter want of sympathy with everything she had been doing the last few weeks; and involuntarily she shuddered. Spencer saw the sensitive quiver and drew back, touched to the quick. Margaret struggled to her feet.

"No, no," she cried, still refusing to meet his eyes. "I�I cannot stay. I am sorry, believe me, to give you pain; but I�I cannot stay!" And she hurried from the room.

The man dropped back in his chair, his face white.

"She does not love me, and no wonder," he sighed bitterly; and he went over word by word what had been said, though even then he did not find syllable or gesture that told him the truth�that she supposed him merely to be playing John Alden to his brother's Miles Standish.