"I guess not. He was very tired after he preached the other night; he lay on the couch and did not move the whole next day. He is better to-day."
"You have seen him this morning?"
"O yes. I see him every day; and he teaches me a great many things. But he always prays for you."
Eleanor did not wish to keep up the conversation, and it dropped. And after that, things went on their train.
It was a very fast train, too; and growing in importance and thickening in its urgency of speed. Every day the preparations converged more nearly towards their great focus, the twenty-first of December. Eleanor felt the whirl of circumstances, felt borne off her feet and carried away with them; and felt it hopelessly. She knew not what to urge that should be considered sufficient reason either by her mother or Mr. Carlisle for even delaying, much less breaking off the match. She was grave and proud, and unsatisfactory, as much as it was in her nature to be, partly on purpose; and Mr. Carlisle was not satisfied, and hurried on things all the more. He kept his temper perfectly, whatever thoughts he had; he rode and walked with Eleanor, when she would go, with the same cool and faultless manner; when she would not, he sometimes let it pass and sometimes made her go; but once or twice he failed in doing this; and recognized the possibility of Eleanor's ability to give him trouble. He knew his own power however; on the whole he liked her quite as well for it.
"What is the matter with you, my darling?" he said one day. "You are not like yourself."
"I am not happy," said Eleanor. "I told you I had a doubt unsettled upon my mind; and till that doubt is put at rest I cannot be happy; I cannot have peace; you will take no pleasure in me."
"Why do you not settle it then?" said Mr. Carlisle, quietly.
"Because I have no chance. I have not a moment to think, in this whirl where I am living. If you would put off the twenty-first of next month to the twenty-first of some month in the spring—or summer—I might have a breathing place, and get myself in order. I cannot, now."
"You will have time to think, love, when you get to the Priory," Mr.
Carlisle observed in the same tone—an absolute tone.