would have said, looking in; and the time had never been
when Elinor was asleep. She had always heard him, always replied,
always been delighted to hear the account of what he had been doing,
and how he had enjoyed himself. But not to-night. With a heart full of
longing, yet of a sick revolt against the sight of her, he went past her
door to his room. He did not want to see her, and yet--oh, if she had
only called to him, if she had but said a word!

Elinor for her part was not asleep. She had slept a little while she was
sure that Philip was safely disposed of and herself secured from all
interruption; but when the time came for his return she slept no longer,
and had been lying for a long time holding her breath, listening to
every sound, when she heard his key in the latch and his foot on the
stair. Would he come in as he always did? or would he remember her
complaint of being tired, a complaint she so seldom made? It was as a
blow to Elinor when she heard his step go on past her door: and yet she
was glad. Had he come in there was a desperate thought in her mind that
she would call him to her bedside and in the dark, with his hand in
hers, tell him--all that there was to tell. But it was again a relief
when he passed on, and she felt that she was spared for an hour or two,
spared for the new day, which perhaps would give her courage. It was an
endless night, long hours of dark, and then longer hours of morning
light, too early for anything, while still nobody in the house was
stirring. She had scarcely slept at all during that long age of weary
and terrible thought. For it was not as if she had but one thing to
think of. When her mind turned, like her restless body, from one side to
another, it was only to a change of pain. What was it she had said,
standing up before earth and heaven, and calling God to witness that
what she said was true? It had been true, and yet she knew that it was
not, and that she had saved her husband's honour at the cost of her own.
Oh, not in those serious and awful watches of the night can such a
defence be accepted as that the letter of her testimony was true! She
did not attempt to defend herself. She only tried to turn to another
thought that might be less bitter: and then she was confronted by the
confession that she must make to her boy. She must tell him that she had
deceived him all his life, hid from him what he ought to have known,
separated him from his father and his family, ke