'Since you know, Sir,' cried she, with quickness, 'my appointment, you must be sensible I am no longer mistress of my time. This is all I can say. I must be gone,—and you will not, I trust,—if I judge you rightly,—you will not compel me to leave you in my apartment.'
'Yes! you judge me rightly! for the universe I would not cause you just offence! Trust me, then, more generously! be somewhat less suspicious, somewhat more open, and take not this desperate step, without hearkening to its objections, without weighing its consequences!'
She could enter, she said, into no discussion; and prepared to depart.
'Impossible!' cried he, with energy; 'I cannot let you go!—I cannot, without a struggle, resign myself to irremediable despair!'
Ellis, recovered now from the impression caused by his first appearance, with a steady voice, and sedate air, said, 'This is a language, Sir,—you know it well,—to which I cannot, must not listen. It is as useless, therefore, as it is painful, to renew it. I beseech you to believe in the sincerity of what I have already been obliged to say, and to spare yourself—to spare, shall I add, me?—all further oppressive conflicts.'
A sigh burst from her heart, but she strove to look unmoved.
'If you are generous enough to share, even in the smallest degree,' cried he, 'the pain which you inflict; you will, at least, not refuse me this one satisfaction.... Is it for Elinor ... and for Elinor only ... that you deny me, thus, all confidence?'
'Oh no, no, no!' cried she, hastily: 'if Miss Joddrel were not in existence,—' she checked herself, and sighed more deeply; but, presently added, 'Yet, surely, Miss Joddrel were cause sufficient!'
'You fill me,' he cried, 'with new alarm, new disturbance!—I supplicate you, nevertheless, to forego your present plan;—and to shew some little consideration to what I have to offer.—'
She interrupted him. 'I must be unequivocally, Sir,—for both our sakes,—understood. You must call for no consideration from me! I can give you none! You must let me pursue the path that my affairs, that my own perceptions, that my necessities point out to me, without interference, and without expecting from me the smallest reference to your opinions, or feelings.—Why, why,' continued she, in a tone less firm, 'why will you force from me such ungrateful words?—Why leave me no alternative between impropriety, or arrogance?'