"It will be all the better practice. You must go and lie down and rest carefully, and get ready to ride with me this afternoon, if the weather will do. Eh, Eleanor?"
"I do not think I shall want to ride to-day."
"Kiss me, and say you will do as I bid you."
Eleanor obeyed, and went to her room feeling wretched. She must find some way quickly to alter this state of things—if she could alter them. In the mean time she had promised to rest. It was a comfort to lock the door and feel that for hours at any rate she was alone from all the world. But Eleanor's heart fainted. She lay down, and for a long time remained in motionless passive dismay; then nature asserted her rights and she slept.
If sleep did not quite "knit up the ravelled sleeve of care" for her, Eleanor yet felt much less ragged when she came out of her slumber. There was some physical force now to meet the mental demand. The first thing demanded was a letter to Mr. Carlisle. It was in vain to think to tell him in spoken words what she wanted him to know; he would cut them short or turn them aside as soon as he perceived their drift, before she could at all possess him with the facts of the case. Eleanor sat down before dressing, to write her letter, so that no call might break her off until it was done.
It was a weary, anxious, sorrowful writing; done with some tears and some mute prayers for help; with images constantly starting into her mind that she had to put aside together with the hot drops they called forth. The letter was finished, when Eleanor was informed that Mr. Carlisle waited for her.
"To ride, I suppose," she thought. "I will not go." She put on a house dress and went down to the library, where her mother and Mr. Carlisle were together; looking both of them so well pleased!
"You are not dressed for riding!" he said, taking her into his arms.
"As you see," returned Eleanor.
"I have brought a new horse for you. Will you change your dress?"