"
"I must go," thought Ellinor. "I will send him away directly; to come,
thinking of marriage to a house like this--to-day, too!"
And she went down hastily, and in a hard unsparing mood towards a man,
whose affection for her she thought was like a gourd, grown up in a
night, and of no account, but as a piece of foolish, boyish excitement.
She never thought of her own appearance--she had dressed without looking
in the glass. Her only object was to dismiss her would-be suitor as
speedily as possible. All feelings of shyness, awkwardness, or maiden
modesty, were quenched and overcome. In she went.
He was standing by the mantelpiece as she entered. He made a step or two
forward to meet her; and then stopped, petrified, as it were, at the
sight of her hard white face.
"Miss Wilkins, I am afraid you are ill! I have come too early. But I
have to leave Hamley in half an hour, and I thought--Oh, Miss Wilkins!
what have I done?"
For she sank into the chair nearest to her, as if overcome by his words;
but, indeed, it was by the oppression of her own thoughts: she was hardly
conscious of his presence.
He came a step or two nearer, as if he longed to take her in his arms and
comfort and shelter her; but she stiffened herself and arose, and by an
effort walked towards the fireplace, and there stood, as if awaiting what
he would say next.
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