for it" (a dead heavy weight
was removed from Maggie's mind), "but Mr. Henry is going to transport him.
It's worse than Crayston. Crayston only ploughed up the turf, and did not
pay rent, and sold the timber, thinking I should never miss it. But your
brother has gone and forged my name He had received all the purchase-money,
while he only gave me half, and said the rest was to come afterward. And
the ungrateful scoundrel has gone and given a forged receipt! You might
have knocked me down with a straw when Mr. Henry told me about it all last
night. 'Never talk to me of virtue and such humbug again,' I said, 'I'll
never believe in them. Every one is for what he can get.' However, Mr.
Henry wrote to the superintendent of police at Woodchester; and has gone
over himself this morning to see after it. But to think of your father
having such a son!"

"Oh my poor father!" sobbed out Maggie. "How glad I am you are dead before
this disgrace came upon us!"

"You may well say disgrace. You're a good girl yourself, Maggie. I have
always said that. How Edward has turned out as he has done, I cannot
conceive. But now, Maggie, I've something to say to you." He moved uneasily
about, as if he did not know how to begin. Maggie was standing leaning her
head against the chimney-piece, longing for her visitor to go, dreading the
next minute, and wishing to shrink into some dark corner of oblivion where
she might forget all for a time, till she regained a small portion of the
bodily strength that had been sorely tried of late. Mr. Buxton saw her
white look of anguish, and read it in part, but not wholly. He was too
intent on what he was going to say.

"I've been lying awake all night, thinking. You see the disgrace it is to
you, though you are innocent; and I'm sure you can't think of involving
Frank in it."

Maggie went to the little sofa, and, kneeling down by it, hid her face in
the cushions. He did not go on, for he thought she was not listening to
him. At last he said:

"Come now, be a sensible girl, and face it out. I've a plan to propose."

"I hear," said she, in a dull veiled voice.

"Why, you know how against this engagement I have always been. Frank is but
three-and-twenty, and does not know his own mind, as I tell him. Besides,
he might marry any one he chose."

"He has chosen me," murmured Maggie.

"Of course, of course. But you'll not think of keeping him to it, after
what has passed. You would not have such a fine fell