"Papa!what does this mean?"said she,putting an open note into his hand.He took up his glasses,but his hand shook so that he could hardly read.The note was from the Parsonage,to Ellinor;only three lines sent by Mr.Ness's servant,who had come to fetch Mr.Corbet's things.He had written three lines with some consideration for Ellinor,even when he was in his first flush of anger against her father,and it must be confessed of relief at his own freedom,thus brought about by the act of another,and not of his own working out,which partly saved his conscience.The note ran thus:
"DEAR ELLINOR,--Words have passed between your father and me which have obliged me to leave his house,I fear,never to return to it.Iwill write more fully to-morrow.But do not grieve too much,for Iam not,and never have been,good enough for you.God bless you,my dearest Nelly,though I call you so for the last time.--R.C.""Papa,what is it?"Ellinor cried,clasping her hands together,as her father sat silent,vacantly gazing into the fire,after finishing the note.
"I don't know!"said he,looking up at her piteously;"it's the world,I think.Everything goes wrong with me and mine:it went wrong before THAT night--so it can't be that,can it,Ellinor?""Oh,papa!"said she,kneeling down by him,her face hidden on his breast.
He put one arm languidly round her."I used to read of Orestes and the Furies at Eton when I was a boy,and I thought it was all a heathen fiction.Poor little motherless girl!"said he,laying his other hand on her head,with the caressing gesture he had been accustomed to use when she had been a little child."Did you love him so very dearly,Nelly?"he whispered,his cheek against her:
"for somehow of late he has not seemed to me good enough for thee.
He has got an inkling that something has gone wrong,and he was very inquisitive--I may say he questioned me in a relentless kind of way.""Oh,papa,it was my doing,I'm afraid.I said something long ago about possible disgrace."He pushed her away;he stood up,and looked at her with the eyes dilated,half in fear,half in fierceness,of an animal at bay;he did not heed that his abrupt movement had almost thrown her prostrate on the ground.
"You,Ellinor!You--you--"
"Oh,darling father,listen!"said she,creeping to his knees,and clasping them with her hands."I said it,as if it were a possible case,of some one else--last August--but he immediately applied it,and asked me if it was over me the disgrace,or shame--I forget the words we used--hung;and what could I say?""Anything--anything to put him off the scent.God help me,I am a lost man,betrayed by my child!"Ellinor let go his knees,and covered her face.Every one stabbed at that poor heart.In a minute or so her father spoke again.
"I don't mean what I say.I often don't mean it now.Ellinor,you must forgive me,my child!"He stooped,and lifted her up,and sat down,taking her on his knee,and smoothing her hair off her hot forehead."Remember,child,how very miserable I am,and have forgiveness for me.He had none,and yet he must have seen I had been drinking.""Drinking,papa!"said Ellinor,raising her head,and looking at him with sorrowful surprise.
"Yes.I drink now to try and forget,"said he,blushing and confused.
"Oh,how miserable we are!"cried Ellinor,bursting into tears--"how very miserable!It seems almost as if God had forgotten to comfort us!""Hush!hush!"said he."Your mother said once she did so pray that you might grow up religious;you must be religious,child,because she prayed for it so often.Poor Lettice,how glad I am that you are dead!"Here he began to cry like a child.Ellinor comforted him with kisses rather than words.He pushed her away,after a while,and said,sharply:"How much does he know?I must make sure of that.How much did you tell him,Ellinor?""Nothing--nothing,indeed,papa,but what I told you just now!""Tell it me again--the exact words!""I will,as well as I can;but it was last August.I only said,'Was it right for a woman to marry,knowing that disgrace hung over her,and keeping her lover in ignorance of it?'""That was all,you are sure?""Yes.He immediately applied the case to me--to ourselves.""And he never wanted to know what was the nature of the threatened disgrace?""Yes,he did.""And you told him?"
"No,not a word more.He referred to the subject again today,in the shrubbery;but I told him nothing more.You quite believe me,don't you,papa?"He pressed her to him,but did not speak.Then he took the note up again,and read it with as much care and attention as he could collect in his agitated state of mind.
"Nelly,"said he,at length,"he says true;he is not good enough for thee.He shrinks from the thought of the disgrace.Thou must stand alone,and bear the sins of thy father."He shook so much as he said this,that Ellinor had to put any suffering of her own on one side,and try to confine her thoughts to the necessity of getting her father immediately up to bed.She sat by him till he went to sleep,and she could leave him,and go to her own room,to forgetfulness and rest,if she could find those priceless blessings.
