Chapter 39

room but the little drop of ashes from the fire, the sudden burst of a little gas-flame from the coals, the rustle of Elinor's arm as it moved. The cat sat with her tail curled round her before the fire, the image of dignified repose, winking at the flames. The two human inhabitants, save for the movements of their hands, might have been in wax, they were so still. Suddenly, however, the quietness was broken by an energetic movement. Elinor threw her work down on the table and rose from her chair. She went to the window and drew the curtain aside, and looked out upon the night. She shut it carefully again, and going to the writing-table, struck a match and lighted the candles there, and sat down and began, or appeared to begin, to write. Then she rose quickly again and returned to the table at which Mrs. Dennistoun was still seated, knitting on, but watching every movement of her restless companion. "Mother," she said, "I can't write, I have far too much to say. I will run up to town to-morrow myself and see John."

"To town, Elinor, by yourself? My dear, you forget it is not an hour's journey, as it was to Windyhill."

"I know that very well, mother. But even the journey will be an advantage. The movement will do me good, and I can tell John much better than I could write. Who could write about a complicated business like this? He will understand me when he sees me at half a word; whereas in writing one can never explain. Don't oppose me, please, mother! I feel that to do something, to get myself in motion, is the only thing for me now."

"I will not oppose you, Elinor. I have done so, perhaps, too little, my dear; but we will not speak of that. No doubt, as you say, you will understand each other better if you tell him the circumstances face to face. But, oh, my dear child, do nothing rash! Be guided by John; he is a prudent adviser. The only thing is that he, no more than I, has ever been able to resist you, Elinor, if you had set your heart upon any course. Oh, my dear, don't go to John with a foregone conclusion. Hear first what he has to say!"

Elinor came behind her mother with one of those quick returns of affectionate impulse which were natural to her, and put her arms suddenly round Mrs. Dennistoun. "You have always been far too good to me, mamma," she said, kissing her tenderly, "both John and you."

And next morning she carried out her swiftly conceived intention and went to town, as the reader is aware. A long railway journey is sometimes soothing to one distracted with agitation and trouble. The quiet and the noise, which serves as a kind of accompaniment, half silencing, half promoting too active thought; the forced abstraction and silence, and semi-imprisonment of mind and body, which are equally restless, but which in that enclosure are bound to self-restraint, exercise, in spite of all struggles of the subject, a subduing effect. And it was a strange thing that in the seclusion of the railway compartment in which she travelled alone there came for the first time to Elinor a softening thought, the sudden sensation of a feeling, of which she had not been sensible for years, towards the man whose name she bore. It occurred to her quite suddenly, she could not tell how, as if some one invisible had thrown that reflection into her mind (and I confess that I am of opinion they do: those who are around us, who are unseen, darting into our souls thoughts which do not originate with us, thoughts not always of good, blasphemies as well as blessings)--it occurred to her, I say, coming into her mind like an arrow, that after all she had not been so well hidden as she thought all these years, seeing that she had been found at once without difficulty, it appeared, when she was wanted. Did this mean that he had known where she was all the time--known, but never made any attempt to disturb her quiet? The thought startled her very much, revealing to her a momentary glimpse of something that looked like magnanimity, like consideration and generous self-restraint. Could these things be? He could have hurt her very much had he pleased, even during the time she had remained at Windyhill, when certainly he knew where she was: and he had not done so. He might have taken her child from her: at least he might have made her life miserable with fears of losing her child: and he had not done so. If indeed it was true that he had known where she was all the time and had never done anything to disturb her, what did that mean? This thought gave Elinor perhaps the first sense of self-reproach and guilt that she had ever known towards this man, who was her husband, yet whom she had not seen for more than eighteen years.

And then there was another thing. After that interval he was not afraid to put himself into her hands--to trust to her loyalty for his salvation. He knew that she could betray him--and he knew equally well that she would not do so, notwithstanding the eighteen years of estrangement and mutual wrong that lay between. It did not matter that the loyalty he felt sure of would be a false loyalty, an upholding of what was not true. He would think little of that, as likely as not he had forgotten all about that. He would know that her testimony would clear him, and he would not think of anything else; and even did he think of it the fact of a woman making a little mis-statement like that would never have affected Philip. But the strange thing was that he had no fear she would revenge herself by standing up against him--no doubt of her response to his appeal; he was as ready to put his fate in her hands as if she had been the most devoted of wives--his constant companion and champion. This had the most curious effect upon her mind, almost greater than the other. She had shown no faith in him, but he had faith in her. Reckless and guilty as he was, he had not doubted her. He had put it in her power to convict him not only of the worst accusation that was brought against him, but of a monstrous trick to prove his _alibi_, and a cruel wrong to her compelling her to uphold that as true. She was able to expose him, if she chose, as no one else could do; but he had not been afraid of that. This second thought, which burst upon Elinor without any volition of her own, had the most curious effect upon her. She abstained carefully, anxiously, from allowing herself to be drawn into making any conclusion from these darts of unintended thoughts. But they moved her in spite of herself. They made her think of him, which she had for a long time abstained from doing. She had shut her heart for years from any recollection of her husband, trying to ignore his existence in thought as well as in fact. And she had succeeded for a long time in doing this. But now in a moment all her precautions were thrown to the winds. He came into her memory with a sudden rush for which she was no way responsible, breaking all the barriers she had put up against him: that he should have known where she was all this time, and never disturbed her, respected her solitude all these years--that when the moment of need came he should, without a word to conciliate her, without an explanation or an apology, have put his fate into her hands---- To the reader who understands I need not say more of the effect upon the mind of Elinor, hasty, generous, impatient as she was of these two strange facts. There are many in the world who would have given quite a different explanation--who would have made out of the fact that he had not disturbed her only the explanation that Phil Compton was tired of his wife and glad to get rid of her at any price: and who would have seen in his appeal to her now only audacity combined with the conviction that she would not compromise herself by saying anything more than she could help about him. I need not say which of these interpretations would have been the true one. But the first will understand and not the other what it was that for the first time for eighteen years awakened a struggle and controversy which she could not ignore, and vainly endeavoured to overcome, in Elinor's heart.