What could you do more even if you were on the spot? And it is very
possible that the trial may have come on before you get home. Then what
could you do? He would either have been acquitted or condemned; if the
former, he would find public sympathy all in his favour; it always is for
the unjustly accused. And if he turns out to be guilty, my dear Ellinor,
it will be far better for you to have all the softening which distance
can give to such a dreadful termination to the life of a poor man whom
you have respected so long."
But Ellinor spoke again with a kind of irritated determination, very
foreign to her usual soft docility:
"Please just let me judge for myself this once. I am not ungrateful. God
knows I don't want to vex one who has been so kind to me as you have
been, dear Mrs. Forbes; but I must go--and every word you say to dissuade
me only makes me more convinced. I am going to Civita to-morrow. I
shall be that much on the way. I cannot rest here."
Mrs. Forbes looked at her in grave silence. Ellinor could not bear the
consciousness of that fixed gaze. Yet its fixity only arose from Mrs.
Forbes' perplexity as to how best to assist Ellinor, whether to restrain
her by further advice--of which the first dose had proved so useless--or
to speed her departure. Ellinor broke on her meditations:
"You have always been so kind and good to me,--go on being so--please,
do! Leave me alone now, dear Mrs.
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