it as
soon as the time was come. And then last night I was so glad to think
that he was engaged with John, and I so worn out, not fit for anything.
And then this morning----"

"Then--this morning I arrived, just when I would have been better away!"

"Don't say that, mother. It is always, always well you should be with
your children. And, oh, if I had but taken your advice years and years
ago!"

How easy it is to wish this when fate overtakes us, when the thing so
long postponed, so long pushed away from us, has to be done at last!
There is, I fear, no repentance in it, only the intolerable sense that
the painful act might have been over long ago, and the soul free now of
a burden which is so terrible to bear.

Philip did not leave his room all the morning. His mother, overwhelmed
now by the new anxiety about his health, which had no part in her
thoughts before, went to his door and knocked several times, always with
the intention of going in, of insisting upon the removal of all
barriers, and of telling her story, the story which now was as fire in
her veins and had to be told. But he had locked his door, and only
answered from within that he was reading--getting up something that he
had forgotten--and begged her to leave him undisturbed till lunch. Poor
Elinor! Her story was, as I have said, like fire in her veins; but
when the moment came, and a little more delay, an hour, a morning was
possible, she accepted it like a boon from heaven, though she knew very
well all the same that it was but prolonging the agony, and that to get
it accomplished--to get it over--was the only thing to desire. She
tried to arrange her thoughts, to think how she was to tell it, in the
hurrying yet flying minutes when she sat alone, listening now and then
to Philip's movements over her head, for he was not still as a boy
should be who was reading, but moved about his room, with a nervous
restlessness that seemed almost equal to her own. Mrs. Dennistoun, to
leave her daughter free for the conversation that ought to take place
between Elinor and her son, had gone to lie down, and lay in Elinor's
room, next door to the boy, listening to every sound, and hoping, hoping
that they would get it over before she went down-stairs again. She did
not believe that Philip would stand out against his mother, whom he
loved. Oh, if they could but get it over, that explanation--if the boy
but knew! But it was apparent enough, when she came down to lunch