She looked round at him again. Looking up with a look of pale horror, her eyelids in agonised curves over her eyes, her mouth quivering. "What did you say, John?"
"I said it might be a more bitter punishment still for—the other side."
Elinor lifted up her baby to her breast, raising herself with a new dignity, with her head high. "I meant no punishment," she said, "I want none. I have left—what killed me—behind me; many things, not one only. I have brought my boy away that he may never—never— But if it would be better that—another should be free—"
"I will never give my consent to it, Elinor."
"Nor I with my own mind; but if it is vindictive—if it is revenge, mother! I am not alone to think of myself. If it were better for —— that he should be free; speak to John about it and tell me. I cannot, cannot discuss it. I will leave it all to John and you. It will kill me! but what does that matter?—it is not revenge that I seek."
She turned with the baby pressed to her breast and walked away, her every movement showing the strain and excitement of her soul.
"Why did you do this, John, without at least consulting me? You have thrown a new trouble into her mind. She will never, never do this thing—nor would I permit it. There are some things in which I must take a part. I could not forbid her marriage; God grant that I had had the strength to do it—but this I will forbid, to expose her to the whole world, when everything we have done has been with the idea of concealing what had happened. Never, never. I will never consent to it, John."
"I had no intention of proposing such a step; but the other side—as we are bound to call him—are frightened about it. And when I saw her look up, so young still, so sweet, with all her life before her, and thought how she must spend it—alone; with no expanding, no development, in this cottage or somewhere else, a life shipwrecked, a being so capable, so full of possibilities—lost."
"I have spent my life in this cottage," said Mrs. Dennistoun. "My husband died when I was thirty—my life was over, and still I was young; but I had Elinor. There were some who pitied me too, but their pity was uncalled for. Elinor will live like her mother, she has her boy."
"But it is different; you cannot but see the difference."