any fear
of danger from him? Did she suppose him incapable of action?--too
unimportant to reckon with, too unimportant to trouble, even if he
should try, the well-arranged surface of her unperturbed life? Very
possibly she might not like him, but he was at least a man; it seemed to
him that she ought to have some regard for any man's opinion; even some
fear of it, in a case of this kind.

Yes, he was very angry. And he knew that he was.

Then, adding itself to this anger, there came always a second, came
against his will; this was a burning resentment against her personally,
for falling so far below the idea he had had of her. He had thought her
narrow, self-righteous,--yes; but he had also thought her life in other
respects as pellucid (and cold) as a mountain brook; one of those
brooks, if one wanted a comparison, that flow through the high valleys
of the Alps, clear, cold, and dreary; he had had time to make
comparisons in abundance, if that were any entertainment!

But it was not. And he found it impossible, too, to think of Margaret in
any other than this his first way; the second, in spite of what he had
with his own eyes beheld, remained unreal, phantasmagoric. This seemed
to him folly, and he was now going back to East Angels to break it up;
it would break it up to find her defiant. And it would amount to
defiance--her looking at him and talking to him without giving any sign,
no matter how calmly or even timidly she might do it; in his actual
presence perhaps she would be timid. In all cases, in any case, he now
wished to see her; the desire to find himself face to face with her had
taken possession of him again.

He reached East Angels the next day at two o'clock. Betty Carew was the
first to greet him, she had herself arrived from Gracias only an hour
before. She was full of the intelligence she brought, and immediately
repeated it to the new-comer: Mr. Moore had that morning received a
letter, or rather a note of six lines; Rosalie Spenser was dead. Her
illness had been brief, and she had not suffered; they thought it was
the heart. Fortunately Lucian had been able to get to her; he had found
the despatch at New Orleans, and had started immediately; they had had
the last three days together, and she was conscious to the end. And then
followed the good Betty's regrets, which were sincere; she had always
liked Lucian, and, when he married, her affectionate, easily expanding
heart had made room for Rosalie