"We see now that you were right when you said that you had better leave us.You are free to go as soon as you wish.You have, of course, your money, but if you care to stay with us until you have found some work you must now obey our rules.While you remain with us you must not go out unless my sister or I accompany you." Then her voice changed, softening a little.She suddenly raised her hands in a gesture of appeal: "Oh, Maggie, Maggie, turn to God.You have rebelled against Him.You have refused to listen to His voice.The end of that can be only misery.He loves, but He also judges.Even now, within a day, a week, He may come with judgment.Turn to Him, Maggie, not because I tell you but because of the Truth.Pray with me now that He may help you and give you strength."Because she felt that she had indeed treated them badly and must do just now what they wished, she knelt down on the drawing-room carpet.Aunt Anne also knelt down, her figure stiff like iron, her raised hands once again delicate and ghost-like.
"0 Lord God," she prayed, "this Thy servant comes to Thee and prays that Thou wilt give her strength in her struggle with the Evil One.
She has been tempted and is weak, but Thou art strong to save and wilt not despise the least of these Thy children.""Come, O Lord the Father, and take Thy daughter into Thy loving care, and when Thou comest, in all Thy splendour, to redeem the world, I pray that Thou wilt find her waiting for Thee in holiness and meekness of heart."They rose.Maggie's knees were sore with the stiff carpet.The family group watched her from the wall ironically.
She saw that in spite of the prayer Aunt Anne had not forgiven her.
She stood away from her, and although her voice now was not so hard, it had lost altogether the tender note that it used to have.
"Now, Maggie, you must promise us that you will not see Martin Warlock again."Maggie flushed."No, aunt, I can't promise that.""Then we must treat you as a prisoner whilst you are with us.""If he wants to see me I must see him."
They looked at one another.Aunt Anne was like a man just then.
"Very well.Until you give us your promise we must see ourselves that you do not disgrace us."There was no more to be said.It was as though a heavy iron door had rolled to.
Aunt Anne passed Maggie and left the room.
Well, then, there was the situation.As she remained in the empty room she felt relief because now she knew where she was.
If only she could keep in touch with Martin then nothing else at all mattered.But that must be, otherwise she felt that she would rush at them all and tread them down and break doors and windows to get at him.
Meanwhile, how they must all have been talking! She felt no especial anger against Caroline Smith.It had been her own fault for trusting that note to her honour.Caroline had no honour, of course.Maggie might have guessed that from the way that she talked about other people.And then probably she herself was in love with Martin...
She sat down, staring in front of her, thinking.They all knew, Amy Warlock, Mr.Thurston, Miss Avies--knew about that wonderful, marvellous thing, her love for Martin, his for her.They were turning it over in their hands, soiling it, laughing at it, sneering at it.And what were they doing to Martin? At that thought she sprang up and began hurriedly to walk about.Oh, they must leave him alone! What were they saying to him? They were telling him how ridiculous it was to have anything to do with a plain, ugly girl!
And he? Was he defending her? At the sudden suggestion of his disloyalty indignation fought in her with some strange, horrible suspicion.Yes, it would come back, that thought.He was weak.He had told her that he was.He was weak.She KNEW that he was.She would not lie to herself.And then at the thought of his weakness the maternal love in her that was the strongest instinct in her character flooded her body and soul, so that she did not mind if he were weak, but only wanted to defend him, to protect him...
Strangely, she felt more sure of him at that moment when she was conscious of his weakness than she had been when she asserted his strength.Beneath that weakness he would be true to her because he needed her.No one else could give him what she did; he had said so again and again.And it would always be so.He would have to come back to her however often he denied her.
She felt happier then.She could face them all.She had been bad to her aunts, too.She had done them harm, and they had been nothing but goodness to her.Apart from leaving Martin she would do all, these next weeks, to please them.
She went up to her bedroom, and when she reached it she realised, with a little pang of fright, that she was a prisoner.No more meetings outside Hatchards, no more teas, no more walks...She looked out of the window down into the street.It was a long way down and the figures walking were puppets, not human at all.But the thing to be thought of now was the question of letters.How was she to get them to the Strand Office and receive from them Martin's letters in return? After long, anxious thought there seemed to be only one way.There was a kitchen-maid, Jane, who came every morning to the house, did odd jobs in the kitchen, and went home again in the evening.Maggie had seen the girl about the house a number of times, had noticed her for her rebellious, independent look, and had felt some sympathy with her because she was under the harsh dominion of Martha.
Maggie had spoken to her once or twice and the girl had seemed grateful, smiling in a kind of dark, tearful way under her untidy hair.Maggie believed that she would help her; of course the girl would get into trouble were she discovered, and dismissal would certainly follow, but it was clear enough that she would not in any case be under Martha's government very long.Martha never kept kitchen-maids for more than a month at a time.
She sat down at once and wrote her first letter, sitting on her bed.
