We may still get to Marseilles on Monday
evening; on by diligence to Lyons; it will--it must, I fear, be Thursday,
at the earliest, before we reach Paris--Thursday, the eighth--and I
suppose you know of some exculpatory evidence that has to be hunted up?"
He added this unwillingly; for he saw that Ellinor was jealous of the
secresy she had hitherto maintained as to her reasons for believing Dixon
innocent; but he could not help thinking that she, a gentle, timid woman,
unaccustomed to action or business, would require some of the assistance
which he would have been so thankful to give her; especially as this
untoward accident would increase the press of time in which what was to
be done would have to be done.
But no. Ellinor scarcely replied to his half-inquiry as to her reasons
for hastening to England. She yielded to all his directions, agreed to
his plans, but gave him none of her confidence, and he had to submit to
this exclusion from sympathy in the exact causes of her anxiety.
Once more in the dreary sala, with the gaudy painted ceiling, the bare
dirty floor, the innumerable rattling doors and windows! Ellinor was
submissive and patient in demeanour, because so sick and despairing at
heart. Her maid was ten times as demonstrative of annoyance and disgust;
she who had no particular reason for wanting to reach England, but who
thought it became her dignity to make it seem as though she had.
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