He soon, now, recovered his usual tone, and disengaged manner. 'She must certainly,' he said, 'be obeyed; though I so little expected such a summons, that I was giving directions for my departure.'
'Ah, no!' cried Ellis, 'rather again defer it.'
'You would have me again defer it?' he repeated, with a vivacity he tried still more, though vainly, to subdue than to disguise.
The word again did not make the cheeks of Ellis paler; but she answered, with eagerness, 'Yes, for the same purpose and same person!—I am forced to speak explicitly—and abruptly. Indeed, Sir, you know not, you conceive not, the dreadfully alarming state of her nerves, nor the violence of her attachment.—You could scarcely else—' she stopt, for he changed colour and looked hurt: she saw he comprehended that she meant to add, you could scarcely else resist her: she finished, therefore, her phrase, by 'scarcely else plan leaving her, till you saw her more composed, and more reconciled to herself, and to the world.'
'You may imagine,' said he, pensively, 'it is any thing rather than my inclination that carries me hence ... but I greatly fear 'tis the only prudent measure I can pursue.'
'You can best judge by seeing her,' said Ellis: 'her situation is truly deplorable. Her faculties are all disordered; her very intellects, I fear, are shaken; and there is no misfortune, no horrour, which her desperation, if not softened, does not menace.'
Harleigh now seemed awakened to sudden alarm, and deep concern; and Ellis painfully, with encreasing embarrassment, from encreasing consciousness, added, 'You will do, I am sure, what is possible to snatch her from despair!' and then returned to the house: satisfied that her meaning was perfectly comprehended, by the excess of consternation into which it obviously cast Harleigh.