would bear anything rather."

"This of course," said John, "is perhaps a still more bitter punishment
for the other side."

She looked round at him again. Looking up with a look of pale horror,
her eyelids in agonised curves over her eyes, her mouth quivering. "What
did you say, John?"

"I said it might be a more bitter punishment still for--the other side."

Elinor lifted up her baby to her breast, raising herself with a new
dignity, with her head high. "I meant no punishment," she said, "I want
none. I have left--what killed me--behind me; many things, not one only.
I have brought my boy away that he may never--never-- But if it would be
better that--another should be free--"

"I will never give my consent to it, Elinor."

"Nor I with my own mind; but if it is vindictive--if it is revenge,
mother! I am not alone to think of myself. If it were better for ----
that he should be free; speak to John about it and tell me. I cannot,
cannot discuss it. I will leave it all to John and you. It will kill me!
but what does that matter?--it is not revenge that I seek."

She turned with the baby pressed to her breast and walked away, her
every movement showing the strain and excitement of her soul.

"Why did you do this, John, without at least consulting me? You have
thrown a new trouble into her mind. She will never, never do this
thing--nor would I permit it. There are some things in which I must take
a part. I could not forbid her marriage; God grant that I had had the
strength to do it--but this I will forbid, to expose her to the whole
world, when everything we have done has been with the idea of concealing
what had happened. Never, never. I will never consent to it, John."

"I had no intention of proposing such a step; but the other side--as we
are bound to call him--are frightened about it. And when I saw her look
up, so young still, so sweet, with all her life before her, and thought
how she must spend it--alone; with no expanding, no development, in this
cottage or somewhere else, a life shipwrecked, a being so capable, so
full of possibilities--lost."

"I have spent my life in this cottage," said Mrs. Dennistoun. "My
husband died when I was thirty--my life was over, and still I was young;
but I had Elinor. There were some who pitied me too, but their pity was
uncalled for. Elinor will live like her mother, she has her boy."

"But it is different; you cannot but see the difference."

"Yes, I see it--it is dif