"What has put this fancy in your head, Eleanor?"
"A sense of danger, first, I think."
"A sense of danger! Danger of what?"
"Yes. A feeling of being unready for that other life to which I might at any time go;—that other world, I mean. I cannot be happy so." She was agitated; her colour was high; her nerves trembled.
"How came this 'sense of danger' into your head? what brought it, or suggested it?"
"When I was ill last summer—I felt it then. I have felt it since. I feel my head uncovered to meet the storm that may at any time break upon it. I am going to live, if I can, as people live whom you would laugh at; you would call them fanatics and fools. It is the only way for me to be happy; but you would not like it in one near you."
"Go in a black dress, Eleanor?"
She was silent. She very nearly burst into tears, but prevented that.
"You can't terrify me," said Mr. Carlisle, lazily throwing himself back in his chair. "I don't get up a 'sense of danger' as easily as you do, darling. One look in your face puts all that to flight at once. I am safe. You may do what you like."
"You would not say that by and by," said Eleanor.