“Well, Aunt Jean, let us be thankful we were not born to set it right,” said Aubrey, reconciled to see that his six-miles’ drive was to be in company with Margaret. But she, in her deep mourning, did not afford much good diversion during the drive. The fact that it was the last day--the last day! had at length penetrated her mind; and a vague horror of what might happen, of something hanging over her which she did not understand, of leave-takings, and engagements to be entered into and promises to be made, had come over Margaret like a cloud. She had passively obeyed her sisters’ orders, and followed them into the carriage, though not without an acute recollection of her last drive in that carriage by her father’s side at a time when she was not passive at all, but liked her own way and had it, and was not aware how happy she was. Margaret took all the other changes as secondary to the one great change, and did not feel them as an old man’s darling, a somewhat spoiled child, accustomed to unlimited indulgence for all her fancies, might have been expected to do. But her individuality came back to her, and with it a sense of unknown troubles to be encountered, as she leaned back in her corner, saying nothing. She drew herself as far as possible away from Aubrey Bellingham, and she let her veil drop, with its heavy burden of crape, and took refuge within herself. She had to part with her home, and Bell and John, the attendants of her life, but, more alarming still and strange, she had to part with Rob Glen. Ludovic’s interposition had increased tenfold the importance of everything about Rob Glen, the circumstances of which she had thought so little when the first step had been taken. How could she have thought of the young man’s position, or of any consequences that might follow, at the moment when her father lay dying? Rob had been very kind; his tenderness, his caresses, had gone to her heart. There were indeed moments, after the first, when they no longer impressed her with such a sense of kindness, when she would have been glad enough to avoid the close contact, and when the touch of his arm round her gave Margaret a sense of shy shrinking, rather than of the utter confidence and soothing which she had felt at first--and when she had not liked to vex him by resistance, but had edged and shrunk away, and made herself as small as possible to avoid the embarrassing pressure.