Before Margaret, Frederick and Mr. Thornton walked onto the platform, Margaret felt one more word of caution was necessary to impart to the mill owner and she told him concisely about Leonards, Fred's association with the man and how Leonards was not only a trouble maker but also currently in Milton. Mr. Thornton suggested that he aid Margaret in keeping a watch for Leonards and if anything were to happen, he would be a witness, particularly in his position of Magistrate. As the three traversed the flagstone steps up to the platform, there came a sound of footsteps behind them. The train was rapidly approaching and in a minute Frederick would be safe. Margaret warned him to check the carriage carefully for Leonards once inside. Unfortunately, Frederick's face was illuminated by the lamps by the station. A mean looking, roughly dressed fellow shoved past a surprised Margaret saying, 'By your leave' and then he was accosting Fred. Mr. Thornton inserted himself into the argument and moved his large frame between that of Frederick and his aggressor. The fellow – it was Leonards himself – tried to reach around Mr. Thornton in order to grab hold of Frederick and, being seriously inebriated, he tripped in the process of doing so. Leonards fell from the platform about three or four feet down onto the soft ground below and Margaret handed Fred his carpet bag, hurrying him onto the train. A brief handclasp and a shared glance were all the farewell the siblings could manage and then the train hissed and was off. Margaret stood watching the train puff away from the station, still not entirely sure what had just occurred – it had happened so fast. She could honestly tell her father that she had seen Frederick enter the train carriage and that Leonards was most assuredly not on the train with Fred. Had Mr. Thornton, Magistrate and mil owner, truly fought on Frederick's behalf? Margaret turned around and noticed Mr. Thornton standing a short way behind her and she walked over, desiring for her equanimity a closer proximity to the man who had so forcefully defended her family.
Mr. Thornton was concerned for Margaret with all that had recently occurred. 'Are you well, Miss Hale?' he murmured to her. She nodded and lowered her head but he saw the slight glimmer of unshed tears before her face was averted. In unspoken agreement, they two silently checked over the edge of the platform to assess Leonards' condition. He was gone. There being nothing else to do, Mr. Thornton collected his horse from where it had been secured and he and Margaret strolled in companionable silence in the direction of town. Margaret noted the horse and recollected that he had been on his way to a destination prior to meeting Frederick and Margaret near the train station. She felt a need to express her regrets and possibly release him from his attending her on the way to her home.
'Mr. Thornton, may I apologize for causing you to be late to your appointment? Your defense of my brother has prevented you attending to your business and I hope that we have not cost you too much time. I would not want to impose on you to accompany me what will take you far from your previous path.'
Mr. Thornton regarded her for a moment with an unreadable expression before answering, 'It was my pleasure, Miss Hale, to be of service and would view myself as greatly remiss in my responsibility to your father if I were to abandon you on the road to find your own way.' He hoped that placing his presence in the guise of an obligation might prevent Margaret from refusing his company as he most assuredly wished to remain in hers. The sight of Margaret in the light of the lamps, a golden glow shining on her beautiful countenance, almost made Mr. Thornton passionately declare his love for her right there on the station platform. He had recalled himself only at the last moment.
Margaret felt dissatisfied with his explanation, as he plainly thought of their walk as no more than a duty to her father and not as – what? What did she hope that he meant? I wonder if he is even now regretting his actions and promise of discretion, Margaret mused. As she contemplated the matter, Mr. Thornton began, 'Miss Hale, you can certainly understand my curiosity and I would ask that once we have quitted the immediate environs of the station if you could enlighten me on further details of your brother's trouble.'
They quietly strolled for some minutes, unspeaking, until the lamp light from the train station no longer lit the way and was merely a slight illumination at their backs. Margaret glanced around to reassure herself of their relative solitude and began to speak of what she remembered of her brother until he had left to become a sailor. She somberly related the details that she had read in Frederick's letters and the newspaper clippings kept by her parents of the cruelty of his commanding officer and the subsequent death of one of the sailors due to this man's heartlessness. Margaret then told her rapt listener of Fred's own part in the mutiny and how he was trying to protect his fellow sailors but 'the Admiralty does not see it that way and Frederick, were he to be identified, would be brought for court martial and hanged.' Mr. Thornton registered the odd incongruity in the situation, where by attempting justice for one's subordinates, a person would be considered as treasonous to one's superiors. It struck him as a mill owner particularly strongly and he wondered at fate and how the Hale family's had become interwoven, so to speak, with his own. While Mr. Thornton was lost in these thoughts, Margaret was finishing her tale and so he almost missed her mention of her confidence in Frederick's exculpation. 'And now Fred is on his way to London to ask of our family's friend, Henry Lennox – he is a barrister – if there is any way in which to find and bring forth witnesses to prove Fred's innocence. If that were to happen, then Papa would be extremely relieved and Fred could visit frequently or even return to live in England,' she stated hopefully.
Mr. Thornton's ears caught the remark about Henry Lennox and it gave him pause. Here was reference to the man again and, once more, he speculated on how close a friend of the Hale family this fellow was and what precisely Mr. Lennox's connection to Margaret was. To Mr. Thornton, it seemed as if a gleaming door which had been opened in front of him, beckoning, was now slammed shut. He continued to converse with Margaret but the spirit was gone from his words and looks.
Margaret noticed Mr. Thornton's apparent preoccupation – for how else was she to explain his enthusiastic participation in their discussion one moment and his closed face and unemotional replies the next moment otherwise? Her bewilderment increased to the point where she doubted his reception of her father's invitation to attend Mrs. Hale's funeral and on the back of confusion, came anger.
It's only a tiny wrinkle and seriously, there is too much left in the story to make everything happy shmappy yet.