This afternoon her unconsciousness gave present pain,
although on after reflection each found in her speeches a cause of
rejoicing.
"And Mr. Dunster, Mr. Wilkins, has he come home yet?"
A moment's pause, in which Mr. Wilkins pumped the words out of his husky
throat:
"I have not heard. I have been riding. I went on business to Mr.
Estcourt's. Perhaps you will be so kind as to send and inquire at Mrs.
Jackson's."
Ellinor sickened at the words. She had been all her life a truthful
plain-spoken girl. She held herself high above deceit. Yet, here came
the necessity for deceit--a snare spread around her. She had not
revolted so much from the deed which brought unpremeditated death, as she
did from these words of her father's. The night before, in her mad fever
of affright, she had fancied that to conceal the body was all that would
be required; she had not looked forward to the long, weary course of
small lies, to be done and said, involved in that one mistaken action.
Yet, while her father's words made her soul revolt, his appearance melted
her heart, as she caught it, half turned away from her, neither looking
straight at Miss Monro, nor at anything materially visible. His hollow
sunken eye seemed to Ellinor to have a vision of the dead man before it.
His cheek was livid and worn, and its healthy colouring gained by years
of hearty out-door exercise, was all gone into the wanness of age.
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