“And when will be the end of it, John?” she asked him.

“Ha! that seems so hard to say. They did name the first of April, but it won’t be so soon as that. Mr Slow said to-day about the end of April, but his clerk seems to think it will be the middle of May.”

“It is very provoking,” said Margaret.

“Yes, it is,” said John Ball, “very provoking; I feel it so. It worries me so terribly that I have no comfort in life. But I suppose you find everything very nice here.”

“They are very kind to me.”

“Very kind, indeed. It was quite the proper thing for them to do; and when I heard that Mrs Mackenzie had been to you in Arundel Street, I was delighted.”

Margaret did not dare to tell him that she would have preferred to have been left in Arundel Street; but that, at the moment, was her feeling. If, when all this was over, she would still have to earn her bread, it would have been much better for her not to have come among her rich relations. What good would it then do her to have lived two or three months in Cavendish Square?

“I wish it were all settled, John,” she said; and as she spoke there was a tear standing in the corner of each eye.

“I wish it were, indeed,” said John Ball; but I think that he did not see the tears.

It was on her tongue to speak some word about the hospital; but she felt that if she did so now, it would be tantamount to asking him that question which it did not become her to ask; so she repressed the word, and sat in silence.

“When the day is positively fixed for the hearing,” said he, “I will be sure to let you know.”

“I wish you would let me know nothing further about it, John, till it is all settled.”

“I sometimes almost fancy that I wish the same thing,” said he, with a faint attempt at a smile; and after that he got up and went his way.

This was not to be endured. Margaret declared to herself that she could not live and bear it. Let the people around her say what they would, it could not be that he would treat her in this way if he intended to make her his wife. It would be better for her to make up her mind that it was not to be so, and to insist on leaving the Mackenzies’ house. She would go, not again to Arundel Street, but to some lodging further away, in some furthest recess of London, where no one would come to her and flurry her with false hopes, and there remain till she might be allowed to earn her bread. That was the mood in which Mrs Mackenzie found her late in the afternoon on the day of Sir John Ball’s visit. There was to be a dinner party in the house that evening, and Margaret began by asking leave to absent herself.