The Turn of the Tide Part 31

"Yes. I used to think he loved you even then, but after the fire, and I heard your cry of 'Frank'----"

Margaret sprang to her feet.

"Bobby, Bobby, you don't know what you are saying," she cried agitatedly. "Mr. Spencer does not love me, and he never loved me. Why, Bobby, he couldn't! He even pleaded with me to marry another man."

"He pleaded with you!" Bobby's eyes were puzzled.

"Yes. Now, Bobby, surely you understand that he doesn't love me. Surely you must see!"

Bobby threw a quick look into the flushed, quivering face; then hastily turned his eyes away.

"Yes, I see," he said almost savagely. And he did see--more than he wanted to. But he did not understand: how a man _could_ have the love of Margaret Kendall and not want it, was beyond the wildest flights of his fancy.

CHAPTER XL

Frank Spencer had already left the Mill House and gone to Hilcrest when McGinnis was well enough to go back to his place in the mills. The mills, in spite of the loss of the two buildings (which were being rapidly rebuilt) were running full time, and needed him greatly, particularly as the senior member of the firm had not entirely regained his old health and strength.

For some time after McGinnis went away, Margaret remained at the Mill House; but she was restless and unhappy in the position in which she found herself. McGinnis taught an evening cla.s.s at the Mill House, and she knew that it could not be easy for him to see her so frequently now that the engagement was broken. Margaret blamed herself bitterly, not for the broken engagement, but for the fact that there had ever been any engagement at all. She told herself that she ought to have known that the feeling she had for Bobby was not love--and she asked herself scornfully what she thought of a young woman who could give that love all unsought to a man who was so very indifferent as to beg her favor for another! Those long hours of misery when the mills burned had opened Margaret's eyes; and now that her eyes were opened, she was frightened and ashamed.

It seemed to Margaret, as she thought of it, that there was no way for her to turn but to leave both the Mill House and Hilcrest for a time.

Bobby would be happier with her away, and the Mill House did not need her--Clarabella had come from New York, and had materially strengthened the teaching force. As for Hilcrest--she certainly would not stay at Hilcrest anyway--now. Later, when she had come to her senses, perhaps--but not now.

It did not take much persuasion on the part of Margaret to convince Mrs.

Merideth that a winter abroad would be delightful--just they two together. The news of Margaret's broken engagement had been received at Hilcrest with a joyous relief that was nevertheless carefully subdued in the presence of Margaret herself; but Mrs. Merideth could not conceal her joy that she was to take Margaret away from the "whole unfortunate affair," as she expressed it to her brothers. Frank Spencer, however, was not so pleased at the proposed absence. He could see no reason for Margaret's going, and one evening when they were alone together in the library he spoke of it.

"But, Margaret, I don't see why you must go," he protested.

For a moment the girl was silent; then she turned swiftly and faced him.

"Frank, Bobby McGinnis was my good friend. From the time when I was a tiny little girl he has been that. He is good and true and n.o.ble, but I have brought him nothing but sorrow. He will be happier now if I am quite out of his sight at present. I am going away."

Frank Spencer stirred uneasily.

"But you will be away--from him--if you are here," he suggested.

"Oh, but if I'm here I shall be there," contested Margaret with a haste that refused to consider logic; then, as she saw the whimsical smile come into the man's eyes, she added brokenly: "Besides, I want to get away--quite away from my work."

Spencer grew sober instantly. The whimsical look in his eyes gave place to one of tender sympathy.

"You poor child, of course you do, and no wonder! You are worn out with the strain, Margaret."

She raised a protesting hand.

"No, no, you do not understand. I--I have made a failure of it."

"A failure of it!"

"Yes. I want to get away--to look at it from a distance, and see if I can't find out what is the trouble with it, just as--as artists do, you know, when they paint a picture." There was a feverishness in Margaret's manner and a tremulousness in her voice that came perilously near to tears.

"But, my dear Margaret," argued the man, "there's nothing the matter with it. It's no failure at all. You've done wonders down there at the Mill House."

Margaret shook her head slowly.

"It's so little--so very little compared to what ought to be done," she sighed. "The Mill House is good and does good, I acknowledge; but it's so puny after all. It's like a tiny little oasis in a huge desert of poverty and distress."

"But what--what more could you do?" ventured the man.

Margaret rose, and moved restlessly around the room.

"I don't know," she said at last. "That's what I mean to find out." She stopped suddenly, facing him. "Don't you see? I touch only the surface.

The great cause behind things I never reach. Sometimes it seems as if it were like that old picture--where was it? in Pilgrim's Progress?--of the fire. On one side is the man trying to put it out; on the other, is the evil one pouring on oil. My two hands are the two men. With one I feed a hungry child, or nurse a sick woman; with the other I make more children hungry and more women sick."

"Margaret, are you mad? What can you mean?"

"Merely this. It is very simple, after all. With one hand I relieve the children's suffering; with the other I take dividends from the very mills that make the children suffer. A long time ago I wanted to 'divvy up' with Patty, and Bobby and the rest. I have even thought lately that I would still like to 'divvy up'; and--well, you can see the way I am 'divvying up' now with my people down there at the mills!" And her voice rang with self-scorn.

The man frowned. He, too, got to his feet and walked nervously up and down the room. When he came back the girl had sat down again. Her elbows were on the table, and her linked fingers were shielding her eyes.

Involuntarily the man reached his hand toward the bowed head. But he drew it back before it had touched a thread of the bronze-gold hair.

"I do see, Margaret," he began gently, "and you are right. It is at the mills themselves that the first start must be made--the first beginning of the 'divvying up.' Perhaps, if there were some one to show us"--he paused, then went on unsteadily: "I suppose it's useless to say again what I said that day months ago: that if you stayed here, and showed him--the man who loves you--the better way----"

Margaret started. She gave a nervous little laugh and picked up a bit of paper from the floor.

"Of course it is useless," she retorted in what she hoped was a merry voice. "And he doesn't even love me now, besides."

"He doesn't love you!" Frank Spencer's eyes and voice were amazed.

"Of course not! He never did, for that matter. 'Twas only the fancy of a moment. Why, Frank, Ned never cared for me--that way!"

"_Ned!_" The tone and the one word were enough. For one moment Margaret gazed into the man's face with startled eyes; then she turned and covered her own telltale face with her hands--and because it was a telltale face, Spencer took a long stride toward her.

"Margaret! And did you think it was Ned I was pleading for, when all the while it was I who was hungering for you with a love that sent me across the seas to rid myself of it? Did you, Margaret?"

There was no answer.

"Margaret, look at me--let me see your eyes!" There was a note of triumphant joy in his voice now.

Still no answer.

"Margaret, it did not go--that love. It stayed with me day after day, and month after month, and it only grew stronger and deeper until there was nothing left me in all this world but you--just you. And now--Margaret, my Margaret," he said softly and very tenderly. "You _are_ my Margaret!"

And his arms closed about her.