"
"It is not peril--it is shame and obloquy--" she murmured.
"Well! shame and obloquy. Perhaps, if I knew all I could shield you from
it."
"Don't, pray, speak any more about it now; if you do, I must say 'No.'"
She did not perceive the implied encouragement in these words; but he
did, and they sufficed to make him patient.
The time was up, and he could only render her his last services as
"courier," and none other but the necessary words at starting passed
between them.
But he went away from the station with a cheerful heart; while she,
sitting alone and quiet, and at last approaching near to the place where
so much was to be decided, felt sadder and sadder, heavier and heavier.
All the intelligence she had gained since she had seen the _Galignani_ in
Paris, had been from the waiter at the Great Western Hotel, who, after
returning from a vain search for an unoccupied _Times_, had volunteered
the information that there was an unusual demand for the paper because of
Hellingford Assizes, and the trial there for murder that was going on.
There was no electric telegraph in those days; at every station Ellinor
put her head out, and enquired if the murder trial at Hellingford was
ended. Some porters told her one thing, some another, in their hurry;
she felt that she could not rely on them.
"Drive to Mr. Johnson's in the High street--quick, quick.
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