you tell him the circumstances face to
face. But, oh, my dear child, do nothing rash! Be guided by John; he is
a prudent adviser. The only thing is that he, no more than I, has ever
been able to resist you, Elinor, if you had set your heart upon any
course. Oh, my dear, don't go to John with a foregone conclusion. Hear
first what he has to say!"

Elinor came behind her mother with one of those quick returns of
affectionate impulse which were natural to her, and put her arms
suddenly round Mrs. Dennistoun. "You have always been far too good to
me, mamma," she said, kissing her tenderly, "both John and you."

And next morning she carried out her swiftly conceived intention and
went to town, as the reader is aware. A long railway journey is
sometimes soothing to one distracted with agitation and trouble. The
quiet and the noise, which serves as a kind of accompaniment, half
silencing, half promoting too active thought; the forced abstraction
and silence, and semi-imprisonment of mind and body, which are equally
restless, but which in that enclosure are bound to self-restraint,
exercise, in spite of all struggles of the subject, a subduing effect.
And it was a strange thing that in the seclusion of the railway
compartment in which she travelled alone there came for the first time
to Elinor a softening thought, the sudden sensation of a feeling, of
which she had not been sensible for years, towards the man whose name
she bore. It occurred to her quite suddenly, she could not tell how, as
if some one invisible had thrown that reflection into her mind (and I
confess that I am of opinion they do: those who are around us, who are
unseen, darting into our souls thoughts which do not originate with us,
thoughts not always of good, blasphemies as well as blessings)--it
occurred to her, I say, coming into her mind like an arrow, that after
all she had not been so well hidden as she thought all these years,
seeing that she had been found at once without difficulty, it appeared,
when she was wanted. Did this mean that he had known where she was all
the time--known, but never made any attempt to disturb her quiet? The
thought startled her very much, revealing to her a momentary glimpse of
something that looked like magnanimity, like consideration and generous
self-restraint. Could these things be? He could have hurt her very much
had he pleased, even during the time she had remained at Windyhill, when
certainly he knew where she was: