Mr. Bell was stunned by the shock; and only recovered when the
time came for being angry at every suggestion of his man's.
'A coroner's inquest? Pooh. You don't think I poisoned him! Dr.
Forbes says it is just the natural end of a heart complaint. Poor
old Hale! You wore out that tender heart of yours before its
time. Poor old friend! how he talked of his----Wallis, pack up a
carpet-bag for me in five minutes. Here have I been talking. Pack
it up, I say. I must go to Milton by the next train.' The bag was packed, the cab ordered, the railway reached, in
twenty minutes from the moment of this decision. The London train
whizzed by, drew back some yards, and in Mr. Bell was hurried by
the impatient guard. He threw himself back in his seat, to try,
with closed eyes, to understand how one in life yesterday could
be dead to-day; and shortly tears stole out between his grizzled
eye-lashes, at the feeling of which he opened his keen eyes, and
looked as severely cheerful as his set determination could make
him. He was not going to blubber before a set of strangers. Not
he!
There was no set of strangers, only one sitting far from him on
the same side. By and bye Mr. Bell peered at him, to discover
what manner of man it was that might have been observing his
emotion; and behind the great sheet of the outspread 'Times,' he
recognised Mr. Thornton.
'Why, Thornton! is that you?' said he, removing hastily to a
closer proximity. He shook Mr. Thornton vehemently by the hand,
until the gripe ended in a sudden relaxation, for the hand was
wanted to wipe away tears. He had last seen Mr. Thornton in his
friend Hale's company.
'I'm going to Milton, bound on a melancholy errand. Going to
break to Hale's daughter the news of his sudden death!' 'Death! Mr. Hale dead!' 'Ay; I keep saying it to myself, "Hale is dead!" but it doesn't
make it any the more real. Hale is dead for all that. He went to
bed well, to all appearance, last night, and was quite cold this
morning when my servant went to call him.' 'Where? I don't understand!' 'At Oxford. He came to stay with me; hadn't been in Oxford this
seventeen years--and this is the end of it.' Not one word was spoken for above a quarter of an hour. Then Mr.
Thornton said: 'And she!' and stopped full short.
'Margaret you mean. Yes! I am going to tell her. Poor fellow! how
full his thoughts were of her all last night! Good God! Last
night only. And how immeasurably distant he is now! But I take
Margaret as my child for his sake. I said last night I would take
her for her own sake. Well, I take her for both.' Mr. Thornton made one or two fruitless attempts to speak, before
he could get out the words: 'What will become of her!' 'I rather fancy there will be two people waiting for her: myself
for one. I would take a live dragon into my house to live, if, by
hiring such a chaperon, and setting up an establishment of my
own, I could make my old age happy with having Margaret for a
daughter. But there are those Lennoxes!' 'Who are they?' asked Mr. Thornton with trembling interest.