When Love Becomes a Weapon — North and South

The morning after the riot, Margaret wakes exhausted. Thornton comes to the Hales' house intending to express gratitude and, if the moment permits, to declare himself. He waits in the drawing room working up his resolve; Margaret enters quietly and the scene begins before he has quite prepared it. He tries to thank her for what she did at the mill; she refuses all gratitude on the grounds that she does not feel she deserves it. He presses further, insisting she must see why an act of such selflessness creates a kind of obligation on his part, and she continues to rebuff the logic. Finally, Thornton declares his feelings directly. Margaret refuses him. She is not unkind but she is clear: she does not feel what he feels, his social world is not one she has come to admire, and she did not act at the mill out of any particular concern for him. He takes it, stiffly. He insists that she despises him because she does not understand him, which may be true, and she does not argue the point. He leaves. Alone afterward, Margaret replays the conversation with a mixture of relief and unease. She noticed what she thought were tears in his eyes as he went. She does not regret refusing him, but she regrets that her manner, civil and perhaps even careless, led him so far without any warning from her. She resolves it inwardly with a declaration that she would do the same thing again, at the mill, even knowing all it has cost: that is the truth she can stand behind, whatever the social consequences.