"A change!" cried Geoffrey, his heart thumping audibly, and his cheek blanched; "a change!" "O, nothin' serious, Mr. Ludlows; but she have been a worritin' herself, poor lamb, and a cryin' her very eyes out. But what it is I can't make out, though statin' put your trust in one where trust is doo, continual." "I don't follow you yet, Mrs. Flexor. Your lodger has been in low spirits--is that it?" "Sperrits isn't the name for it, Mr. Ludlows, when downer than dumps is what one would express. As queer as Dick's hatband have she been ever since you went away yesterday; and I says to her at tea last evening--" "I can see her, I suppose?" "Of course you can, sir; which all I was doing was to prepare you for the--" but here Mrs. Flexor, who had apparently taken something stronger than usual with her dinner, broke down and became inarticulate. Geoffrey pushed past her, and, knocking at the parlour-door, entered at once. He found Margaret standing, with her arms on the mantelshelf, surveying herself in the wretched little scrap of looking-glass which adorned the wall. Her hair was arranged in two large full bands, her eyes were swollen, and her face was blurred and marked by tears. She did not turn round at the opening of the door, nor, indeed, until she had raised her head and seen in the glass Geoff's reflection; even then she moved languidly, as though in pain, and her hand, when she placed it in his, was dry with burning heat. "That chattering idiot down stairs was right after all," said Geoff, looking alarmedly at her; "you are ill?" "No," she said, with a faint smile; "not ill, at all events not now. I have been rather weak and silly; but I did not expect you yet. I intended to remove all traces of such folly by the time you came. It was fit I should, as I want to talk to you most seriously and soberly." "Do we not always talk so? did we not the last time I was here--yesterday?" "Well, generally, perhaps; but not the last time--not yesterday. If I could have thought so, I should have spared myself a night of agony and a morning of remorse." Geoff's face grew clouded. "I am sorry for your agony, but much more sorry for your remorse, Miss Dacre," said he. "Ah, Mr. Ludlow," cried Margaret, passionately, "don't _you_ be angry with me; don't _you_ speak to me harshly, or I shall give way all together! O, I watched every change of your face; and I saw what you thought at once; but indeed, indeed it is not so. My remorse is not for having told you all that I did yesterday; for what else could I do to you who had been to me what you had? My remorse was for what I had done--not for what I had said--for the wretched folly which prompted me to yield to a wheedling tongue, and so ruin myself for ever." Her tears burst forth again as she said this, and she stamped her foot upon the ground.