pt him in ignorance,
despite all that had been said to her, despite every argument. And when
Elinor in her misery fled from that thought, what was there else to
think of? There was her husband, Pippo's father, from whom he could no
longer be kept. If she had thought herself justified in stealing her
child away out of fear of the influence that father might have upon him,
how would it be now when they must be restored to each other, at an age
much more dangerous for the boy than in childhood, and with all the
attractions of mystery and novelty and the sense that his father had
been wronged! When she escaped from that, the most terrible thought of
all, feeling her brain whirl and her heart burn as she imagined her
child turning from the mother who had deceived him to the father who had
been deprived of him, her mind went off to that father himself, from
whom she had fled, whom she had judged and condemned, but who had repaid
her by no persecution, no interference, no pursuit, but an acceptance of
her verdict, never molesting her, leaving her safe in the possession
of her boy. Perhaps there were other ways in which Phil Compton's
magnanimity have been looked at, in which it would have shown in less
favourable colours. But Elinor was not ready to take that view. Her
tower of justice and truth and honour had crumbled over her head. She
was standing among her ruins, feeling that nothing was left to her,
nothing upon which she could build herself a structure of self-defence.
All was wrong; a series of mistakes and failures, to say no worse. She
had driven on ever wilful all through, escaping from every pang she
could avoid, throwing off every yoke that she did not choose to bear:
until now here she stood to face all that she had fled from, unable to
elude them more, meeting them as so many ghosts in her way. Oh, how true
it was what John had said to her so long, so long ago--that she was not
one who would bear, who if she were disappointed and wronged could
endure and surmount her trouble by patience! Oh, no, no! She had been
one who had put up with nothing, who had taken her own way. And now she
was surrounded on every side by the difficulties she had thrust away
from her, but which now could be thrust away no more.

It may be imagined what the night was which Elinor spent sleepless,
struggling one after another with these thoughts, finding no comfort
anywhere wherever she turned. She had not been without many a struggle
even