"
"What did you say?" asked Maggie, holding her breath to catch the
answer, which was, "I told him you had not written to me since my
return from Cuba, and then he looked as if he would say more, but a
customer called him away, and our conversation was not resumed."
For a moment Maggie was silent. Then she said: "I am glad you did not
intrude me upon him. If Theo has gone to Hillsdale, she knows that
I am here, and does not care to follow me. It is the disgrace that
troubles them, not the losing me!" and again burying her head in the
cushions of the lounge, she wept bitterly. It was useless for Henry
and Rose to try to comfort her, telling her it was possible that Hagar
had told nothing. "And if so," said Henry, "you well know that I am
the last one to whom you would be expected to flee for protection."
Margaret would not listen. She was resolved upon being unhappy, and
during the long hours of that night she tossed wakefully upon her
pillow, and when the morning came she was too weak to rise; so she
kept her room, listening to the music of the Sabbath bells, which to
her seemed sadly saying, "Home, home." "Alas! I have no home," she
said, turning away to weep, for in the tolling of those bells there
came to her no voice whispering of the darkness, the desolation, and
the sorrow that were in the home for which she so much mourned.
Thus the day wore on, and ere another week was gone Rose insisted upon
a speedy removal to the seashore, notwithstanding it was so early in
the season, for by this means she hoped that Maggie's health would be
improved.
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