But Margaret did _not_ love her child so deeply as to find her presence a sweet necessity. There was a cloud over her motherhood, which robbed it of some of its fair charm. Duty to her child, not pleasure in her, was her one idea of the tie that alone, at this period of her history, bound her to life. It was _this_ made her anxiety that, whatever her own lot might be, Laura should have every advantage in the way of education and training. And with the anxiety came the need for exertion. Up to the moment when the child's growth and development made the mother think of that bugbear of mothers--her education--Margaret had not been troubled with any money difficulties. She had lived in her retirement, the one trouble of her life wrapping her in its gloomy folds, but with no care for the provision of herself and her child in the future. Suddenly, inexplicably, one source of income had failed. Margaret had not been accustomed to trouble herself about money: the sufficient came to her--that was all she required to know--and this poverty was a new and dreadful thing which she found it very difficult to realize. She tried to fathom the mystery, but it eluded her; only this remained as a hard fact: eighty pounds a year was all she received or seemed likely to receive, and Laura had to be educated. The spirit of self-sacrifice is strong in some women; it was very strong in Margaret. She had loved her solitude by the great sea, and had succeeded in making it almost pleasant. There she pondered and wept and hoped; there, if anywhere, she thought that her trial must end. She would not enter the great world, to be swamped and lost in its multitude. Hiding her loss where none could know and none would blame, she would live in the midst of a savage loneliness which seemed almost sympathetic to her mood. This suited her, but would it do for Laura? Was she a fit companion for her child, already dreamy and imaginative beyond her years? No, Margaret told herself; and, leaving the little one in the care of the woman from whom she hired their little cottage, she went to London alone, to try and find some occupation for herself. She had been directed to Islington as a cheap neighborhood; and there she had stayed in a wretched lodging-house for about three weeks--three ages to poor Margaret, filled with dismal memories of humiliation and disappointment. She was reviewing it all that evening--the rudeness, the repulses, the cruel cross-examinations; for with these came the fresher scenes which that day had brought--the chivalrous admiration that had shone out of Arthur's young eyes, the gentle, womanly tenderness of Adèle.