Slowly she then walked away, followed silently by Juliet, who durst not address her. Anxiously she looked around, till, at some distance, she descried a horseman. It was Harleigh. She stopped, deeply moved, and seemed inwardly to bless him. But, when he was no longer in sight, she no longer restrained her anguish, and, casting herself upon the turf, groaned rather than wept, exclaiming, 'Must I live—yet behold thee no more!—Will neither sorrow, nor despair, nor even madness kill me?—Must nature, in her decrepitude, alone bring death to Elinor?'
Rising, then, and vainly trying again to descry the horse, 'All, all is gone!' she cried, 'and I dare not even die!—All, all is gone, from the lost, unhappy Elinor, but life and misery!'
Turning, then, with quickness to Juliet, while pride and shame dried her eyes, 'Ellis,' she said, 'let him not know I murmur!—Let not his last hearing of Elinor be disgrace! Tell him, on the contrary, that his friendship shall not be thrown away; nor his arguments be forgotten, or unavailing: no! I will weigh every opinion, every sentiment that has fallen from him, as if every word, unpolluted by human ignorance or informity, had dropt straight from heaven! I will meditate upon religion: I will humble myself to court resignation. I will fly hence, to avoid all temptation of ever seeing him more!—and to distract my wretchedness by new scenes. Oh Albert!—I will earn thy esteem by acquiescence in my lot, that here,—even here,—I may taste the paradise of alluring thee to include me in thy view of happiness hereafter!'
Her foreign servant, then, came in view, and she made a motion to him with her hand for her carriage. She awaited it in profound mental absorption, and, when it arrived, placed herself in it without speaking.
Juliet, full of tender pity, could no longer forbear saying, 'Adieu, Madam! and may peace re-visit your generous heart!'
Elinor, surprized and softened, looked at her with an expression of involuntary admiration, as she answered, 'I believe you to be good, Ellis!—I exonerate you from all delusory arts; and, internally, I never thought you guilty,—or I had never feared you! Fool! mad fool, that I have been, I am my own executioner! my distracting impatience to learn the depth of my danger, was what put you together! taught you to know, to appreciate one another! With my own precipitate hand, I have dug the gulph into which I am fallen! Your dignified patience, your noble modesty—Oh fatal Ellis!—presented a contrast that plunged a dagger into all my efforts! Rash, eager ideot! I conceived suspense to be my greatest bane!—Oh fool! eternal fool!—self-willed, and self-destroying!—for the single thrill of one poor moment's returning doubt—I would not suffer martyrdom!'
She wept, and hid her face within the carriage; but, holding out her hand to Juliet, 'Adieu, Ellis!' she cried, 'I struggle hardly not to wish you any ill; and I have never given you my malediction: yet Oh!—that you had never been born!'—
She snatched away her hand, and precipitately drew up all the blinds, to hide her emotion; but, presently, letting one of them down, called out, with resumed vivacity, and an air of gay defiance, 'Marry him, Ellis!—marry him at once! I have always felt that I should be less mad, if my honour called upon me for reason!—my honour and my pride!'
The groom demanded orders.
'Drive to the end of the world!' she answered, impatiently, 'so you ask me no questions!' and, forcibly adding, 'Farewell, too happy Ellis!' she again drew up all the blinds, and, in a minute, was out of sight.