"You must remember what is due to me," he said laughing, and stopping her lips when she would have replied. Eleanor walked along, silenced, and for the moment subdued. The wish was in her heart, to have let Mr. Carlisle know in some degree what bent her spirit was taking; to have given him some hint of what he must expect in her when she became his wife; she could not find how to do it. She could not see the way to begin. So far was Mr. Carlisle from the whole world of religious interests and concerns, that to introduce it to him seemed like bringing opposite poles together. She walked by his side very silent and doubtful. He thought she was tired; put her into the carriage with great tenderness when it came; and at parting from her in the evening desired her to go early to rest.
Eleanor was very little likely to do it. The bodily adventures of the day had left little trace, or little that was regarded; the mental journey had been much more lasting in its effects. That night there was a young moon, and Eleanor sat at her window, looking out into the shadowy indistinctness of the outer world, while she tried to resolve the confusion of her mind into something like visible order and definiteness. Two points were clear, and seemed to loom up larger and clearer the longer she thought about them; her supreme need of that which she had not, the faith and deliverance of religion; and the adverse influence and opposition of Mr. Carlisle in all the efforts she might make to secure or maintain it. And under all this lurked a thought that was like a serpent for its unrecognized coming and going and for the sting it left,—a wish that she could put off her marriage. No new thing in one way; Eleanor had never been willing it should be fixed for so early a day; nevertheless she had accepted and submitted to it, and become accustomed to the thought of it. Now repugnance started up anew and with fresh energy. She could hardly understand herself; her thoughts were a great turmoil; they went over and over some of the experiences of the day, with an aimless dwelling upon them; yet Eleanor was in general no dreamer. The words of Mr. Rhys, that had pierced her with a sense of duty and need—the looks, that even in the remembrance wrung her heart with their silent lesson-bearing—the sympathy testified for herself, which intensified all her own emotions,—and in contrast, the very tender and affectionate but supreme manner of Mr. Carlisle, in whose power she felt she was,—the alternation of these images and the thoughts they gave rise to, kept Eleanor at her window, until the young moon went down behind the western horizon and the night was dark with only stars. So dark she felt, and miserable; and over and over and over again her cry of that afternoon was re-echoed,—"What shall I do! what will become of me!"
Upon one thing she fixed. That Mr. Carlisle should know that he was not going to find a gay wife in her, but one whose mind was set upon somewhat else and upon another way of life. This would be very distasteful to him; and he should know it. How she would manage to let him know, Eleanor left to circumstances; but she went to bed with that point determined.
CHAPTER VIII.
IN THE BARN.
"It hath been the longest night
That e'er I watched, and the most heaviest."
Good resolutions are sometimes excellent things, but they are susceptible of overturns. Eleanor's met with one.
She was sitting with Mr. Carlisle the very next day, in a disturbed mood of mind; for he and her mother had been laying plans and making dispositions with reference to her approaching marriage; plans and dispositions in which her voice was not asked, and in which matters were carried rapidly forward towards their consummation. Eleanor felt that bands and chains were getting multiplied round her, fastening her more and more in the possession of her captor, while her own mind was preparing what would be considered resistance to the authority thus secured. The sooner she spoke the better; but how to begin? She bent over her embroidery frame with cheeks that gradually grew burning hot. The soft wind that blew in from the open window at her side would not cool them. Mr. Carlisle came and sat down beside her.
"What does all this mean?" said he laughingly, drawing his finger softly over Eleanor's rich cheek.
"It's hot!" said Eleanor.