Thus, all that Lucy had effected by her zealous mediation
was to fill Tom’s mind with the expectation
that Maggie’s perverse resolve to go into a
situation again would presently metamorphose itself,
as her resolves were apt to do, into something equally
perverse, but entirely different,—a marriage
with Philip Wakem.
Borne Along by the Tide
In less than a week Maggie was at St. Ogg’s
again,—outwardly in much the same position
as when her visit there had just begun. It was
easy for her to fill her mornings apart from Lucy
without any obvious effort; for she had her promised
visits to pay to her aunt Glegg, and it was natural
that she should give her mother more than usual of
her companionship in these last weeks, especially
as there were preparations to be thought of for Tom’s
housekeeping. But Lucy would hear of no pretext
for her remaining away in the evenings; she must always
come from aunt Glegg’s before dinner,—“else
what shall I have of you?” said Lucy, with a
tearful pout that could not be resisted.
And Mr. Stephen Guest had unaccountably taken to dining
at Mr. Deane’s as often as possible, instead
of avoiding that, as he used to do. At first
he began his mornings with a resolution that he would
not dine there, not even go in the evening, till Maggie
was away. He had even devised a plan of starting
off on a journey in this agreeable June weather; the
headaches which he had constantly been alleging as
a ground for stupidity and silence were a sufficient
ostensible motive. But the journey was not taken,
and by the fourth morning no distinct resolution was
formed about the evenings; they were only foreseen
as times when Maggie would still be present for a
little while,—when one more touch, one
more glance, might be snatched. For why not?
There was nothing to conceal between them; they knew,
they had confessed their love, and they had renounced
each other; they were going to part. Honor and
conscience were going to divide them; Maggie, with
that appeal from her inmost soul, had decided it;
but surely they might cast a lingering look at each
other across the gulf, before they turned away never
to look again till that strange light had forever
faded out of their eyes.
Maggie, all this time, moved about with a quiescence
and even torpor of manner, so contrasted with her
usual fitful brightness and ardor, that Lucy would
have had to seek some other cause for such a change,
if she had not been convinced that the position in
which Maggie stood between Philip and her brother,
and the prospect of her self-imposed wearisome banishment,
were quite enough to account for a large amount of
depression. But under this torpor there was a
fierce battle of emotions, such as Maggie in all her
life of struggle had never known or foreboded; it
seemed to her as if all the worst evil in her had
lain in ambush till now, and had suddenly started up
