His
hair, even to Ellinor, seemed greyer for the past night of wretchedness.
He stooped, and looked dreamily earthward, where formerly he had stood
erect. It needed all the pity called forth by such observation to quench
Ellinor's passionate contempt for the course on which she and her father
were embarked, when she heard him repeat his words to the servant who
came with her broth.
"Fletcher! go to Mrs. Jackson's and inquire if Mr. Dunster is come home
yet. I want to speak to him."
"To him!" lying dead where he had been laid; killed by the man who now
asked for his presence. Ellinor shut her eyes, and lay back in despair.
She wished she might die, and be out of this horrible tangle of events.
Two minutes after, she was conscious of her father and Miss Monro
stealing softly out of the room. They thought that she slept.
She sprang off the sofa and knelt down.
"Oh, God," she prayed, "Thou knowest! Help me! There is none other help
but Thee!"
I suppose she fainted. For, an hour or more afterwards Miss Monro,
coming in, found her lying insensible by the side of the sofa.
She was carried to bed. She was not delirious, she was only in a stupor,
which they feared might end in delirium. To obviate this, her father
sent far and wide for skilful physicians, who tended her, almost at the
rate of a guinea the minute.
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