( 221 )
the features of Elinor lost their rigidity, and her eyes their fierceness; and, in milder accents, she replied, "Strange! how strange! Where, then, can he be?—with whom?—how employed?—Does he fly the whole world as well as Elinor? Has no one his society?—no one his confidence?—his society, which, by contrast, makes all existence without it disgusting!—his confidence, which, to obtain, I would yet live, though doomed daily to the rack! O Harleigh! love like mine, who has felt?—love like mine, who but you, O matchless Harleigh! ever inspired!"
Tears now gushed into her eyes. Ashamed, and angry with herself, she hastily brushed them off with the back of her hand, and, with forced vivacity, continued, "He thinks, perchance, to sicken me into the pining end of a love-sick consumption? to avert the kindly bowl or dagger, that cut short human misery, for the languors, the sufferings, and despair of a loathsome natural death?
