He turned upon his heel in fresh dismay. Then resuming courage:
“Nay, nay, I must see what I can do myself first!”
But Madam Tutterville looked unconvinced.
“I believe they would tear Ellinor in pieces, were she to go out among them to-day. I have had to warn her. Horatio—Horatio, have you seen Ellinor?”
Dr. Tutterville nodded. For some undefined reasons he would have given worlds not to be obliged to discuss Ellinor just now. He tried to slip his portly person through the door, but the hand of his spouse was still restraining.
“Do you think she could have been given any of that dreadful stuff too? She is so strange in her manner. And the servants are saying such extraordinary things—not that I would allow them to do so before me—but I could not help hearing.”
With one mute look of reproach the rector wrenched himself away.
“Lord, Lord,” he was saying to himself in a grim spirit of prophecy, as he hurried towards the stables: “There will be but too much time I fear by and by, for the drawing to light of poor Ellinor’s affairs whatever they may be.”
Love is the crown of life: a life without love is a life wasted. Not necessarily must the love that crowns be that of lovers: love of saint for God, of soldier for captain, of comrade for comrade, of student for master, of partisan for King; or, again, love for the abstract object, of artist for art; of patriot for country, of philanthropist for the cause, of seekers for science—one such great love in a life is sufficient to fill it to the brim, to absorb all its energy. But how few are capable of the passion that shall crown them heroes or saints, leaders of thought or of men! Though every man and every woman avidly claim to possess in the full the power of natural love, the real lover is a genius. And genius, of its essence, is rare. To nearly all it is given to strum the tune, to how few is it given to bring forth the full harmony!
Ellinor had one of those rare natures especially designed for the heights and the deeps of love. It had been for many years her curse that some indefinable charm, quite apart from her beauty and strength, should, wherever she went, make her the desire of men’s eyes. But she herself had passed as untouched by the flame, through her too early marriage and the ordeals to which she had been recklessly exposed, as true gold through the test-furnace.