Her Husband's Keeper (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. THE CONFESSION MADE. Once in her mother's presence, Margaret very soon got over all she had to say. She did not use the exact formula she had thought of in her own room, for under strong excitement the very plainest and simplest words usually suggest themselves, but she made it clearly understood that she was announcing a fact that had become unalterable, and which the one suspicion that her mother would look at it disapprovingly alone rendered otherwise than a glad and joyous fact to herself. Mrs. Bellew had not put down her work when her daughter first entered the room; VOL. II. 3 she did not put it down all the time Margaret was speaking; but when the earnest, and somewhat faltering voice died away, and there was utter stillness in the large room, she dropped her needle, folded her hands, with an evidently rigid tightness, in her lap, and bent her eyes, which had an abnormal expression in them, full upon her pale and still standing daughter. " What do you expect of me ?" she asked, in a voice that betrayed, even through a cold and cynical ring in it that was meant to wound, an emotion which wounded infinitely more. " You tell me you are engaged to be married, that you intend to fulfil your engagement, that you are sorry I have no fancy for the husband of your choice, implying that such a trivial accident cannot be helped, and here you wind up your obliging though somewhat abrupt communication. I say again, therefore, what do you expect of me?" Now this reception of her news was so entirely different from anything that Margaret had ever imagined it would be, that she was taken at a disadvantage, and for a minute or two absolutely unable to make a reply at all. Her face changed from pale to red, tears sprang to the eyes so recently dried, and the...