"I know, dear, I know; but when your health is stronger--believe me, Margaret, I do not wish to mock you with an assurance that you can ever quite get over what has happened--when your child, the son and heir, is born, you will be better; you will wonder at yourself that you allowed such sway to these dark forebodings. Think of all you have to make you happy, Margaret, and don't, don't yield to the presentiment which is due to your health alone." She laid her hand on his arm with a smile. "Supposing it be so, James; supposing all I think and feel--all the horrors which come to me in the night-watches, all the memories perfectly distinct in their pain, whereas I could not recall an hour of the brief happiness I ever knew in my days of delusion--supposing all this to be a mere groundless state of suffering, and _you_ know better"--here her clear gray eyes looked at him with an expression of ineffable trust and compassion--"what harm have I done? _If I live_, this marriage may as well be over; and _if I die_, I have spared my husband and my father one sharp pang, at any rate. Haldane would be very sorry, but he would want to be married all the same, and it would be hard upon Fitzwilliam and my father." "And me?" he asked her, as if the question were wrung from him by an irresistible impulse of suffering. Her hand still lay upon his shoulder, and her clear gray eyes, which deepened and darkened as she slowly spoke, still looked steadily into his. "And _you_, James. No, I have no power to save you a pang more or less; it would not make any difference _to you_." There was a strange cruel satisfaction to him in her words. It was something, nay, it was very much, that she should know and acknowledge that with her all that had vital interest for him began and ended, that the gift of his heart, pure, generous, disinterested, was understood and accepted. There was silence between them for some time, and then they talked of more general subjects, and just before their interview came to an end their talk turned upon little Gertrude. "You will always love her best, James; both my children will be dear to you," said Margaret; "but you will always love her whom her mother unconsciously wronged best." Lady Davyntry made her appearance at Davyntry in due season, and the set of Neapolitan coral, which she brought as her contribution to the worldly goods of the bride, was so magnificent, that Lucy could not find it in her heart to cherish any such unpleasant sentiment as jealousy against Eleanor, and determined that the "great friend's" scheme should extend to her also.