"Mean, mother dear? I do not understand you."
"You know perfectly what I mean, you double, deceitful girl!"
Margaret understood now. The tempest, delayed for a while, was upon her. She hung her head, and bent like a willow before the blast.
"You may well cower," her mother cried, pacing up and down. Her spirit boiled, to think that she had been so duped--she, the wise one, the manager--and she could neither sit nor stand still, in her vehement indignation.
"That I should be mother of a girl whose name can be mentioned as I have heard you spoken of this day! Shameless, deceitful, unwomanly--oh!" Words failed her as she stood with clenched hands and eyes of wrath, which might have turned the other to stone, had she dared look up and meet them.
"Say that it is not true! Tell me that woman has lied!--that there was no man with you on the island but your uncle and her detestable son!
"You do not answer me? Speak! Let me hear that there is not a word of truth in her horrid insinuations. I will even say that I am not sorry you would have none of such a woman's son;" and here her voice veered round into the minor key. "I shall not press you to think of _him_. His mother is no better than a common scold. Do you hear me, Margaret?
"You will not speak? Is it that you cannot deny the scandalous things she has been saying?--that you could plan a surreptitious meeting, upon a lonely island, with a man?
"What will people say? It could have been but a chance that your uncle was there to save appearances. Have you no thought for your character? Is every scurrilous beldame to bandy your name about?--and have the right to do it? Have you no womanly pride? and will you drag your innocent young sister in the mire with you?--and your too trusting mother? What have we done that you should expose us to public scorn?
"Ah me! that I should have lived for this! How could you do it? To dig your mother's grave before her eyes! Say that you did not mean it!--that it was thoughtlessness!--that you listened to the voice of a tempter!--that you will not do it again! He is a serpent, Margaret.
"You do not answer me? Ah! my poor heart! How it throbs!" and she pressed her side, and sank into a chair. "You will kill me, Margaret, with shame and grief. A mother cannot survive such undutifulness. My blood will cry at you from the ground! What peace can you ever hope to know, when you have killed your mother?" and here her handkerchief came into use. She covered her face and sobbed.