CHAPTER X
But Glenmurray's heart needed no explanation of the cause of Adeline's elopement. She was with him—with him, as she said, for ever. True, she had talked of flying from misery and dishonour; but he knew they could not reach her in his arms,—not even dishonour according to the ideas of society,—for he meant to make Adeline legally his as soon as they were safe from pursuit, and his illness was forgotten in the fond transport of the present moment.
Adeline's joy was of a much shorter duration. Recollections of a most painful nature were continually recurring. True it was that it was no longer possible for her to reside under the roof of her mother: but was it necessary for her to elope with Glenmurray? the man whom she had solemnly promised her mother to renounce! Then, on the other side, she argued that the appearance of love for Glenmurray was an excuse sufficient to conceal from her deluded parent the real cause of her elopement.
'It was my sole alternative,' said she mentally:—'my mother must either suppose me an unworthy child, or know Sir Patrick to be an unworthy husband; and it will be easier for her to support the knowledge of the one than the other: then, when she forgives me, as no doubt she will in time, I shall be happy: but that I could never be, while convinced that I had made her miserable by revealing to her the wickedness of Sir Patrick.'
While this was passing in her mind, her countenance was full of such anxious and mournful expression, that Glenmurray, unable to keep silence any longer, conjured her to tell him what so evidently weighed upon her spirits.
'The difficulty that oppressed me is past,' she replied, wiping from her eyes the tears which the thought of having left her mother so unexpectedly, and for the first time, produced. 'I have convinced myself, that to leave home and commit myself to your protection was the most proper and virtuous step that I could take: I have not obeyed the dictates of love, but of reason.'
'I am very sorry to hear it,' said Glenmurray mournfully.
'It seems to me so very rational to love you,' returned Adeline tenderly, shocked at the sad expression of his countenance, 'that what seems to be the dictates of reason may be those of love only.'
To a reply like this, Glenmurray could only answer by close involvement not intelligible expressions of fondness to the object of them, which are so delightful to lovers themselves, and so uninteresting to other people: nay, so entirely was Glenmurray again engrossed by the sense of present happiness, that his curiosity was still suspended, and Adeline's story remained untold. But Adeline's pleasure was damped by painful recollections, and still more by her not being able to hide from herself the mournful consciousness that the ravages of sickness were but too visible in Glenmurray's face and figure, and that the flush of unexpected delight could but ill conceal the hollow paleness of his cheek, and the sunk appearance of his eyes.