Mrs. Thornton wrenched it away with no gentle hand. 'Find me some one else to go but that girl must not bleed to death.' 'Bleed! oh, how horrid! How has she got hurt?' 'I don't know,--I have no time to ask. Go down to her, Fanny, and do try to make yourself of use. Jane is with her; and I trust it looks worse than it is. Jane has refused to leave the house, cowardly woman! And I won't put myself in the way of any more refusals from my servants, so I am going myself.' 'Oh, dear, dear!' said Fanny, crying, and preparing to go down rather than be left alone, with the thought of wounds and bloodshed in the very house. 'Oh, Jane!' said she, creeping into the dining-room, 'what is the matter?
How white she looks! How did she get hurt? Did they throw stones into the drawing-room?' Margaret did indeed look white and wan, although her senses were beginning to return to her. But the sickly daze of the swoon made her still miserably faint. She was conscious of movement around her, and of refreshment from the eau de Cologne, and a craving for the bathing to go on without intermission;but when they stopped to talk, she could no more have opened her eyes, or spoken to ask for more bathing, than the people who lie in death-like trance can move, or utter sound, to arrest the awful preparations for their burial, while they are yet fully aware, not merely of the actions of those around them, but of the idea that is the motive for such actions. Jane paused in her bathing, to reply to Miss Thornton's question. 'She'd have been safe enough, miss, if she'd stayed in the drawing-room, or come up to us; we were in the front garret, and could see it all, out of harm's way.' 'Where was she, then?' said Fanny, drawing nearer by slow degrees, as she became accustomed to the sight of Margaret's pale face. 'Just before the front door--with master!' said Jane, significantly. 'With John! with my brother! How did she get there?' 'Nay, miss, that's not for me to say,' answered Jane, with a slight toss of her head. 'Sarah did'---- 'Sarah what?' said Fanny, with impatient curiosity. Jane resumed her bathing, as if what Sarah did or said was not exactly the thing she liked to repeat. 'Sarah what?' asked Fanny, sharply. 'Don't speak in these half sentences, or I can't understand you.' 'Well, miss, since you will have it--Sarah, you see, was in the best place for seeing, being at the right-hand window; and she says, and said at the very time too, that she saw Miss Hale with her arms about master's neck, hugging him before all the people.' 'I don't believe it,' said Fanny. 'I know she cares for my brother; any one can see that; and I dare say, she'd give her eyes if he'd marry her,--which he never will, I can tell her. But I don't believe she'd be so bold and forward as to put her arms round his neck.' 'Poor young lady! she's paid for it dearly if she did. It's my belief, that the blow has given her such an ascendency of blood to the head as she'll never get the better from. She looks like a corpse now.' 'Oh, I wish mamma would come!' said Fanny, wringing her hands. 'I never was in the room with a dead person before.' 'Stay, miss! She's not dead: her eye-lids are quivering, and here's wet tears a-coming down her cheeks. Speak to her, Miss Fanny!' 'Are you better now?' asked Fanny, in a quavering voice. No answer; no sign of recognition; but a faint pink colour returned to her lips, although the rest of her face was ashen pale. Mrs. Thornton came hurriedly in, with the nearest surgeon she could find. 'How is she? Are you better, my dear?' as Margaret opened her filmy eyes, and gazed dreamily at her. 'Here is Mr. Lowe come to see you.' Mrs. Thornton spoke loudly and distinctly, as to a deaf person. Margaret tried to rise, and drew her ruffled, luxuriant hair instinctly over the cut. 'I am better now,' said she, in a very low, faint voice. I was a little sick.' She let him take her hand and feel her pulse. The bright colour came for a moment into her face, when he asked to examine the wound in her forehead;and she glanced up at Jane, as if shrinking from her inspection more than from the doctor's. 'It is not much, I think. I am better now. I must go home.' 'Not until I have applied some strips of plaster; and you have rested a little.' She sat down hastily, without another word, and allowed it to be bound up. 'Now, if you please,' said she, 'I must go. Mamma will not see it, I think.
It is under the hair, is it not?' 'Quite; no one could tell.' 'But you must not go,' said Mrs. Thornton, impatiently. 'You are not fit to go. 'I must,' said Margaret, decidedly. 'Think of mamma. If they should hear----Besides, I must go,' said she, vehemently. 'I cannot stay here. May I ask for a cab?' 'You are quite flushed and feverish,' observed Mr. Lowe. 'It is only with being here, when I do so want to go. The air--getting away, would do me more good than anything,' pleaded she. 'I really believe it is as she says,' Mr. Lowe replied. 'If her mother is so ill as you told me on the way here, it may be very serious if she hears of this riot, and does not see her daughter back at the time she expects. The injury is not deep. I will fetch a cab, if your servants are still afraid to go out.' 'Oh, thank you!' said Margaret. 'It will do me more good than anything.
It is the air of this room that makes me feel so miserable.' She leant back on the sofa, and closed her eyes. Fanny beckoned her mother out of the room, and told her something that made her equally anxious with Margaret for the departure of the latter. Not that she fully believed Fanny's statement; but she credited enough to make her manner to Margaret appear very much constrained, at wishing her good-bye. Mr. Lowe returned in the cab. 'If you will allow me, I will see you home, Miss Hale. The streets are not very quiet yet.' Margaret's thoughts were quite alive enough to the present to make her desirous of getting rid of both Mr. Lowe and the cab before she reached Crampton Crescent, for fear of alarming her father and mother. Beyond that one aim she would not look. That ugly dream of insolent words spoken about herself, could never be forgotten--but could be put aside till she was stronger--for, oh! she was very weak; and her mind sought for some present fact to steady itself upon, and keep it from utterly losing consciousness in another hideous, sickly swoon.
