Elinor herself was almost as doubtful as her cousin whether she really lived and breathed. It seemed rather as though she had already tasted the bitterness of death, and now moved about, a pale, miserable ghost in a land where all was ghastly and miserable. Even Cecil seemed unreal, and that worried her more than all the rest. In the last three days the touch of those little arms had in some way lost its power to comfort, and the childish presence had grown irksome because it forbade her giving way to the bursts of wild weeping which had alternated with stony despair.
Just now Cecil was pressing close to her side and whispering in her ear,—
"Mamma, did Thir Chrithtopher Neville kill the priest? Dost thou think he did it?"
"Hush, Cecil!"
"But did he?"
"I know not."
"Father White thinks he did it."
Silence on Elinor's part.
"And Couthin Giles thinks so."
Still silence.