Now, like a wave that has been gathering from the fulness of the ocean’s bosom, the great waters had broken over her and were sweeping her on.
As she sat by her father’s body she tried to force the image of her loss upon her mind—in vain. One single idea absorbed her; the whole energy of her being was with David. Anon she recalled every instant of his fantastic wooing of the previous night. Anon she would be seized with an agony of terror about his present condition. Again she would float away in a vague warm dream of the moment when he should awaken.... Awaken and remember! People addressed her, and she answered mechanically; but, even while answering, forgot the speaker’s presence.
When Madam Tutterville came to conduct her to her room that night, Ellinor was aware that she had walked through a group of whispering and pointing servants; and she was indifferent. She felt that the good lady herself was looking at her with strange, anxious gaze; and she merely smiled vaguely back. Her soul was in the tower.
Madam Tutterville wore a grave countenance.
“Have you nothing to say to me, Ellinor?” she asked at length.
Ellinor hesitated a second; she wanted to beg for a share in the watch by David’s side; wanted to hear repeated once more the last reassuring news. But the deeper the passion the more closely the woman draws the veil about her; she could not even speak his name.
“Nothing, dear aunt,” she answered.
Madam Tutterville shook her head in troubled fashion, sighed and withdrew.
CHAPTER XVII
TREACHERIES OF SILENCE
——Slander, meanest spawn of Hell,