Ellis, covered with blushes and confusion, addressing herself to Harleigh, said, 'Pardon, Mr Harleigh, my seeming presumption, where no option has been offered me; and where such an option is as wide from my expectations as it would be from my desert. This terrible crisis must be my apology.'
A shivering like that of an ague-fit again shook the agitated Elinor, who, ejaculating, 'What farce is this?—Fool! fool! shall I thus sleepily be duped?' looked keenly around for her lost weapon.
'Duped? no, Madam,' cried Ellis, in a tone impressive of veracity: 'if I had the honour to be better known to Miss Joddrel, one assertion, I flatter myself, would suffice: my word is given; it has never yet been broken!'
While this declaration, though softened by a sigh the most melancholy, struck cold to the heart of Harleigh, its effect upon Elinor was that of an extacy which seemed the offspring of frenzy. 'Do I awake, then,' she cried, 'from agony and death—agony, impossible to support! death, willing and welcome! to renewed life? to an interesting, however deplorable, existence? is my fate in harmony with the fate of Harleigh? Has he, even he! given his soul,—his noble soul!—to one who esteems and admires him, yet who will not be his? Can Harleigh love in vain?'
Tears now rolled fast and unchecked down her cheeks, while, in tones of enthusiasm, she continued, 'I hail thee once again, oh life! with all thy arrows! Welcome, welcome, every evil that associates my catastrophe with that of Harleigh!—Yet I blush, methinks, to live!—Blush, and feel little,—nearly in the same proportion that I should have gloried to die!'
With these words, and recoiling from a solemn, yet tender exhortation, begun by Harleigh, she abruptly quitted the little building; and, her mind not more highly wrought by self-exaltation, than her body was weakened by successive emotions, she was compelled to accept the fearfully offered assistance of Ellis, to regain, with tottering steps, the house.
CHAPTER XIX
Ellis entered into the chamber with Elinor; who, equally exhausted in body and in mind, flung herself upon her bed, where she remained some time totally mute: her eyes wide open, yet looking at nothing, apparently in a state of stupefaction; but from which, in a few minutes, suddenly starting, and taking Ellis by the hand, with a commanding air, she abruptly said, 'Ellis, are you fixed to marry Lord Melbury?'