As it was his habit to rest in his own room during the afternoon, Margaret took her work into the porch, and sat enjoying the sea breeze, and watching the picturesque road that wound beneath the cottage along the shore. She had found out that when the mind is anxious and distressed, the best thing she could do was to work. Her thoughts could not be compelled to study, and her needle passed the time a little more calmly and quickly than when she was doing nothing. And now a labourer might be seen driving a cart drawn by a yoke of oxen along the rugged way; and then a couple of children carrying between them a basket which they had been sent to fill at the neighbouring village; and but for such rare passengers, the road was quiet all day long. While she sat, thinking of the one subject that filled her mind when she could divert it for a moment from her uncle's illness; thinking over all that Mr. Haveloc had ever said and done at Ashdale, she saw, advancing up the path a figure that made her start and colour, it was--she felt sure of it--Hubert Gage. He was walking very fast, opened the rustic gate himself, and hastened up to her. Her first thought was a fear about Elizabeth. "Bessy is well, I hope?" said she eagerly. "Quite well. At last I see you again! How difficult you have made this to me! How impossible it was at Ashdale to gain speech of you even for a moment!" "Have you long returned from Ireland?" said Margaret, feeling greatly embarrassed by the tone of her companion. "Long? This instant! As soon as I learned where you were, I followed you." "And Bessy is really well?" "Bessy? Yes," said he in a tone of impatience. "Let me speak about yourself. Margaret, you have done me a great injustice, and you have not given me the means of defending myself. You have thought me incapable of loving you as you deserved." Margaret held up her hand as if to stop him, he seized it, and pressed it to his lips. "I tell you what, Mr. Hubert Gage, this will not do," said Margaret gravely, regaining possession of her hand; "there is a great want of consideration in your conduct. I am sure you pay very little regard to my tranquillity in coming here. My uncle is very ill, and all my time and thoughts are occupied in attending upon him. I have no time, and I must say no patience for these scenes." Land came down at this moment with Mr. Grey's compliments, and "hearing Mr. Hubert was below, hoped he would stop to dinner." He accepted the invitation, then turning to Margaret, as Land disappeared, said: "I will retract. I will go back instantly if you will make me one promise--I have a right to claim it; a right from all you have made me suffer. Give me the means of seeing you. I have not had fair play--you have not allowed me to address you--to seek to gain your confidence, your love. Cruel! to make your refusal so absolute; to leave me no hope; but I will not be so repulsed: you know nothing of me as yet. Why deny me--"