However, thinking was now too late. How she got into her grandmother’s house she hardly knew; but without a supper, and without confronting either her relative or Edy, she went to bed.
On going out into the garden next morning, with a strange sense of being another person than herself, she beheld Jim leaning mutely over the gate.
He nodded. ‘Good morning, Margery,’ he said civilly.
‘Good morning,’ said Margery in the same tone.
‘I beg your pardon,’ he continued. ‘But which way was you going this morning?’
‘I am not going anywhere just now, thank you. But I shall go to my father’s by-and-by with Edy.’ She went on with a sigh, ‘I have done what he has all along wished, that is, married you; and there’s no longer reason for enmity atween him and me.’
‘Trew—trew. Well, as I am going the same way, I can give you a lift in the trap, for the distance is long.’
‘No thank you—I am used to walking,’ she said.
They remained in silence, the gate between them, till Jim’s convictions would apparently allow him to hold his peace no longer. ‘This is a bad job!’ he murmured.
‘It is,’ she said, as one whose thoughts have only too readily been identified. ‘How I came to agree to it is more than I can tell!’ And tears began rolling down her cheeks.
‘The blame is more mine than yours, I suppose,’ he returned. ‘I ought to have said No, and not backed up the gentleman in carrying out this scheme. ’Twas his own notion entirely, as perhaps you know. I should never have thought of such a plan; but he said you’d be willing, and that it would be all right; and I was too ready to believe him.’
‘The thing is, how to remedy it,’ said she bitterly. ‘I believe, of course, in your promise to keep this private, and not to trouble me by calling.’
‘Certainly,’ said Jim. ‘I don’t want to trouble you. As for that, why, my dear Mrs. Hayward—’
‘Don’t Mrs. Hayward me!’ said Margery sharply. ‘I won’t be Mrs. Hayward!’
Jim paused. ‘Well, you are she by law, and that was all I meant,’ he said mildly.
‘I said I would acknowledge no such thing, and I won’t. A thing can’t be legal when it’s against the wishes of the persons the laws are made to protect. So I beg you not to call me that anymore.’
‘Very well, Miss Tucker,’ said Jim deferentially. ‘We can live on exactly as before. We can’t marry anybody else, that’s true; but beyond that there’s no difference, and no harm done. Your father ought to be told, I suppose, even if nobody else is? It will partly reconcile him to you, and make your life smoother.’