Her aunt answered only by her caresses, silently pressing her lips upon Elinor's forehead.
Elinor threw her arms about Miss Agnes's neck, weeping bitterly.
"But is it really true? Is there not some mistake? Is it possible he felt so little for me? Oh, dearest Aunt!—and Jane, too!"
Miss Wyllys said that she knew nothing of Jane's feelings; but that the manner of both Jane and Harry had struck her several times as singular; though now but too easily accounted for. During the last ten days, she had begun to fear something wrong.
"Never, for one second, had I a doubt of either!" cried Elinor. She now dreaded to receive the letter, she had before asked for so eagerly.
A package had been given by Harry to the chambermaid, that morning, requesting her to place it in Miss Agnes's hands as soon as she left her room. It contained three letters. That to Miss Agnes herself, was full and explicit. He now wrote, he said, because he felt concealment to be no longer possible, after the manner in which he had betrayed himself on hearing of the steamboat accident. He felt convinced that his emotion had been observed by Miss Wyllys, and he almost hoped the suspicions of Elinor had been aroused. He hoped it, for he felt that longer concealment would be unworthy of Elinor, and of himself, since he had not been able to control his feelings. He acknowledged that a frank confession was now due to her.
"I know," he said, "that you will reproach me severely for my want of faith, and I feel that I deserve far more than you will say. But do not think that I erred from deliberate forgetfulness of all that I owed to Elinor. I was for a long time unconscious of the state of my own feelings; and when at length I could no longer deceive myself, the discovery of my weakness was deeply painful and mortifying. You know what has been my situation since last spring—you know to what I have been exposed. Greater caution might no doubt have been used, had I not been misled by blindness, or self-confidence, or vanity, call it what you please. No one can reproach me as severely as I reproach myself. But although my feelings had escaped my own control before I knew it, yet I determined from the first that my actions should at least be worthy of Elinor. I instantly became more guarded. No human being, I believe, until to-day, suspected my folly. Do not reproach Jane. The fault is entirely with me; Jane has been blameless throughout."
He concluded by hoping that his letter would not for a moment be considered by Miss Wyllys or Elinor, as an attempt to break his engagement, which he was still anxious to fulfil. But he thought that, now the explanation had been made, a separation for some time would be preferable for all parties. He proposed to travel for six months, and at the end of that time be hoped to have conquered his own weakness, and to be forgiven by Elinor.
Bitter tears were shed by Elinor, in reading this letter.
The note to herself was short. He had not the courage to repeat to her directly, what he had said to Miss Wyllys.