'Thank you for calling. It is very late. I dare say it is past
ten o'clock. Oh! here is the note!' she continued, suddenly
interpreting the meaning of the hand held out to receive it. He
was putting it up, when she said, 'I think it is a cramped,
dazzling sort of writing. I could not read it; will you just read
it to me?' He read it aloud to her.
'Thank you. You told Mr. Thornton that I was not there?' 'Oh, of course, ma'am. I'm sorry now that I acted upon
information, which seems to have been so erroneous. At first the
young man was so positive; and now he says that he doubted all
along, and hopes that his mistake won't have occasioned you such
annoyance as to lose their shop your custom. Good night, ma'am.' 'Good night.' She rang the bell for Dixon to show him out. As
Dixon returned up the passage Margaret passed her swiftly.
'It is all right!' said she, without looking at Dixon; and before
the woman could follow her with further questions she had sped
up-stairs, and entered her bed-chamber, and bolted her door.
She threw herself, dressed as she was, upon her bed. She was too
much exhausted to think. Half an hour or more elapsed before the
cramped nature of her position, and the chilliness, supervening
upon great fatigue, had the power to rouse her numbed faculties.
Then she began to recall, to combine, to wonder. The first idea
that presented itself to her was, that all this sickening alarm
on Frederick's behalf was over; that the strain was past. The
next was a wish to remember every word of the Inspector's which
related to Mr. Thornton. When had he seen him? What had he said?
What had Mr. Thornton done? What were the exact words of his
note? And until she could recollect, even to the placing or
omitting an article, the very expressions which he had used in
the note, her mind refused to go on with its progress. But the
next conviction she came to was clear enough;--Mr. Thornton had
seen her close to Outwood station on the fatal Thursday night,
and had been told of her denial that she was there. She stood as
a liar in his eyes. She was a liar. But she had no thought of
penitence before God; nothing but chaos and night surrounded the
one lurid fact that, in Mr. Thornton's eyes, she was degraded.
She cared not to think, even to herself, of how much of excuse
she might plead. That had nothing to do with Mr. Thornton; she
never dreamed that he, or any one else, could find cause for
suspicion in what was so natural as her accompanying her brother;
but what was really false and wrong was known to him, and he had
a right to judge her. 'Oh, Frederick! Frederick!' she cried,
'what have I not sacrificed for you!' Even when she fell asleep
her thoughts were compelled to travel the same circle, only with
exaggerated and monstrous circumstances of pain.