who knew or surmised
anything about the matter, I thought it better to take affairs into my
own hands--especially when I found that my daughter had come to your
house. But for this freak of hers I should not, perhaps, have
interfered. As you are no doubt prepared now to resign all hope of her,
I am quite satisfied with the result of my afternoon's work. Come,
Margaret."

CHAPTER XXXII.

THE FAILURE OF MARGARET.

"Then I am to understand," said Wyvis, a sudden glow breaking out over
his dark face, "that you did not make this communication carelessly, as
at first I thought, but out of malice prepense?"

"If you like to call it so--certainly," said Lady Caroline, with a
slight shrug of her shoulders.

"This was your revenge?--when you found that Margaret had come to me!"

"You use strange words, Mr. Wyvis Brand. Revenge is out of date--a quite
too ridiculous idea. I simply mean that I never wish to intermeddle with
my neighbors' affairs, and should not have thought of bringing this
matter forward if your pretentions could have been settled in an
ordinary way. If Margaret"--glancing at her daughter, who stood white
and thunderstricken at her side--"had behaved with submission and with
modesty, I should not have had to inflict what seems to be considerable
pain upon you. But it is her fault and yours. Young people should submit
to the judgment of their elders: we do not refuse to gratify their
wishes without good reason."

Lady Caroline spoke with a cold dignity, which she did not usually
assume. Margaret half covered her face with one hand, and turned aside.
The sight of the slow tears trickling through her fingers almost
maddened Wyvis, as he stood before her, looking alternately at her and
at Lady Caroline. Mrs. Brand and Janetta were left in the background of
the little group. The older woman was still weeping, and Janetta was
engaged in soothing and caressing her; but neither of them lost a word
which passed between the man for whom they cared and the woman whom at
that moment they both sincerely hated.

"But is it a good reason?" said Wyvis at last. His eye flashed beneath
his dark brow, his nostril began to quiver. "If I had been Mark Brand's
son, you mean, you would have given me Margaret?"

"There would then have been no disqualification of birth," said Lady
Caroline, clearly. "There might then have been disqualifications of
character or of fortune, but these we need hardly consider now. The
oth