Chapter 26

CHAPTER XXVI - MOTHER AND SON

'I have found that holy place of rest

Still changeless.'

MRS. HEMANS.

When Mr. Thornton had left the house that morning he was almost
blinded by his baffled passion. He was as dizzy as if Margaret,
instead of looking, and speaking, and moving like a tender
graceful woman, had been a sturdy fish-wife, and given him a
sound blow with her fists. He had positive bodily pain,--a
violent headache, and a throbbing intermittent pulse. He could
not bear the noise, the garish light, the continued rumble and
movement of the street. He called himself a fool for suffering
so; and yet he could not, at the moment, recollect the cause of
his suffering, and whether it was adequate to the consequences it
had produced. It would have been a relief to him, if he could
have sat down and cried on a door-step by a little child, who was
raging and storming, through his passionate tears, at some injury
he had received. He said to himself, that he hated Margaret, but
a wild, sharp sensation of love cleft his dull, thunderous
feeling like lightning, even as he shaped the words expressive of
hatred. His greatest comfort was in hugging his torment; and in
feeling, as he had indeed said to her, that though she might
despise him, contemn him, treat him with her proud sovereign
indifference, he did not change one whit. She could not make him
change. He loved her, and would love her; and defy her, and this
miserable bodily pain.

He stood still for a moment, to make this resolution firm and
clear. There was an omnibus passing--going into the country; the
conductor thought he was wishing for a place, and stopped near
the pavement. It was too much trouble to apologise and explain;
so he mounted upon it, and was borne away,--past long rows of
houses--then past detached villas with trim gardens, till they
came to real country hedge-rows, and, by-and-by, to a small
country town. Then every body got down; and so did Mr. Thornton,
and because they walked away he did so too. He went into the
fields, walking briskly, because the sharp motion relieved his
mind. He could remember all about it now; the pitiful figure he
must have cut; the absurd way in which he had gone and done the
very thing he had so often agreed with himself in thinking would
be the most foolish thing in the world; and had met with exactly
the consequences which, in these wise moods, he had always
fore-told were certain to follow, if he ever did make such a fool
of himself. Was he bewitched by those beautiful eyes, that soft,
half-open, sighing mouth which lay so close upon his shoulder
only yesterday? He could not even shake off the recollection that
she had been there; that her arms had been round