after speaking to her in that way, he would not
allow any words from his mother to dissuade him from his purpose?

She could not go to bed. She knew that her fate was being discussed,
and she knew that her aunt at that very time was using every argument
in her power to ruin her. She felt, moreover, that the story might
be told in such a way as to be terribly prejudicial to her. And now,
when his father was so ill, might it not be very natural that he
should do almost anything to lessen his mother's troubles? But to her
it would be absolute ruin; such ruin that nothing which she had yet
endured would be in any way like it. The story of the loss of her
money had stunned her, but it had not broken her spirit. Her misery
from that had arisen chiefly from the wants of her brother's family.
But if he were now to tell her that all must be over between them,
her very heart would be broken.

She could not go to bed while this was going on, so she sat
listening, till she should hear the noise of feet about the house.
Silently she loosened the lock of her own door, so that the sound
might more certainly come to her, and she sat thinking what she might
best do. It had not been quite eleven when she came upstairs, and at
twelve she did not hear anything. And yet she was almost sure that
they must be still together in that small room downstairs, talking of
her and of her conduct. It was past one before she heard the door of
the room open. She heard it so plainly, that she wondered at herself
for having supposed for a moment that they could have gone without
her noticing them. Then she heard her cousin's heavy step coming
upstairs. In passing to his room he would not go actually by her
door, but would be very near it. She looked through the chink, having
carefully put away her own candle, and could see his face as he came
upon the top stair. It wore a look of trouble and of pain, but not,
as she thought, of anger. Her aunt, she knew, would go to her room by
the back stairs, and would go through the kitchen and over the whole
of the lower house, before she would come out on the landing to which
Margaret's room opened. Then, seeing her cousin, the idea occurred
to her that she would have it all over on that very night. If he
had heard that which changed his purpose, why should she be left in
suspense? He should tell her at once, and at once she would prepare
herself for her future life.

So she opened the door a little way, and calle