no one, she was
afraid of nothing new for the present. Surely, surely, as she said,
there was enough for the present. It did not seem possible that any new
incident should come now.

"I do not want to torment you, Elinor--you may imagine I would be the
last--I would only save you if I could from what must be---- What! what?
who's this?--PHILIP! the boy!"

The door had burst open with an eager, impatient hand upon it, and there
stood upon the threshold, in all the mingled excitement and fatigue of
his night journey, pale, sleep in his eyes, yet happy expectation,
exultation, the certainty of open arms to receive him, and cries of
delight--the boy. He stood for a second looking into the strange yet
familiar room. John Tatham had sprung to his feet and stood startled,
hesitating, while young Philip's eyes, noting him with a glance, flashed
past him to the other more important, more beloved, the mother whom he
had expected to rush towards him with an outcry of joy.

And Elinor sat still in her chair, struck dumb, grown pale like a ghost,
her eyes wide open, her lips apart. The sight of the boy, her beloved
child, her pride and delight, was as a horrible spectacle to Elinor. She
stared at him like one horrified, and neither moved nor spoke.

"Elinor!" cried John, terrified, "there's nothing wrong. Don't you see
it's Philip? Boy, what do you mean by giving her such a fright? She's
fainting, I believe."

"I--give her a fright!" cried, half in anguish, half in indignation, the
astonished boy.

"No, I'm not fainting. Pippo! there's nothing wrong--at home?" Elinor
cried, holding out her hand to him--coming to herself, which meant only
awakening to the horror of a danger far more present than she had ever
dreamt, and to the sudden sight not of her boy, but of that Nemesis
which she had so carefully prepared for herself, and which had been
awaiting her for years. She was not afraid of anything wrong at home.
It was the first shield she could find in the shock which had almost
paralysed her, to conceal her terror and distress at the sight of him
from the astonished, disappointed, mortified, and angry boy.

"I thought," he said, "you would have been glad to see me, mother! No,
there's nothing wrong at home."

"Thank heaven for that!" cried Elinor, feeling herself more and more a
hypocrite as she recovered from the shock. "Pippo, I was saying this
moment that you were at school. The words were scarcely off my lips--and
then