The Warden

CHAPTER XI Iphigenia

When Eleanor laid her head on her pil­low that night, her mind was anx­ious­ly in­tent on some plan by which she might ex­tri­cate her fa­ther from his mis­ery; and, in her warm-​heart­ed en­thu­si­asm, self-​sac­ri­fice was de­cid­ed on as the means to be adopt­ed. Was not so good an Agamem­non wor­thy of an Iphi­ge­nia? She would her­self per­son­al­ly im­plore John Bold to de­sist from his un­der­tak­ing; she would ex­plain to him her fa­ther’s sor­rows, the cru­el mis­ery of his po­si­tion; she would tell him how her fa­ther would die if he were thus dragged be­fore the pub­lic and ex­posed to such un­mer­it­ed ig­nominy; she would ap­peal to his old friend­ship, to his gen­eros­ity, to his man­li­ness, to his mer­cy; if need were, she would kneel to him for the favour she would ask; but be­fore she did this the idea of love must be ban­ished. There must be no bar­gain in the mat­ter. To his mer­cy, to his gen­eros­ity, she could ap­peal; but as a pure maid­en, hith­er­to even un­so­licit­ed, she could not ap­peal to his love, nor un­der such cir­cum­stances could she al­low him to do so. Of course, when so pro­voked he would de­clare his pas­sion; that was to be ex­pect­ed; there had been enough be­tween them to make such a fact sure; but it was equal­ly cer­tain that he must be re­ject­ed. She could not be un­der­stood as say­ing, Make my fa­ther free and I am the re­ward. There would be no sac­ri­fice in that–not so had Jeph­thah’s daugh­ter saved her fa­ther– not so could she show to that kind­est, dear­est of par­ents how much she was able to bear for his good. No; to one re­solve must her whole soul be bound; and so re­solv­ing, she felt that she could make her great re­quest to Bold with as much self- as­sured con­fi­dence as she could have done to his grand­fa­ther.

And now I own I have fears for my hero­ine; not as to the up­shot of her mis­sion–not in the least as to that; as to the full suc­cess of her gen­er­ous scheme, and the ul­ti­mate re­sult of such a project, no one con­ver­sant with hu­man na­ture and nov­els can have a doubt; but as to the amount of sym­pa­thy she may re­ceive from those of her own sex. Girls be­low twen­ty and old ladies above six­ty will do her jus­tice; for in the fe­male heart the soft springs of sweet ro­mance re­open af­ter many years, and again gush out with wa­ters pure as in ear­li­er days, and great­ly re­fresh the path that leads down­wards to the grave. But I fear that the ma­jor­ity of those be­tween these two eras will not ap­prove of Eleanor’s plan. I fear that un­mar­ried ladies of thir­ty-​five will de­clare that there can be no prob­abil­ity of so ab­surd a project be­ing car­ried through; that young wom­en on their knees be­fore their lovers are sure to get kissed, and that they would not put them­selves in such a po­si­tion did they not ex­pect it; that Eleanor is go­ing to Bold on­ly be­cause cir­cum­stances pre­vent Bold from com­ing to her; that she is cer­tain­ly a lit­tle fool, or a lit­tle schemer, but that in all prob­abil­ity she is think­ing a good deal more about her­self than her fa­ther.

Dear ladies, you are right as to your ap­pre­ci­ation of the cir­cum­stances, but very wrong as to Miss Hard­ing’s char­ac­ter. Miss Hard­ing was much younger than you are, and could not, there­fore, know, as you may do, to what dan­gers such an en­counter might ex­pose her. She may get kissed; I think it very prob­able that she will; but I give my solemn word and pos­itive as­sur­ance, that the re­motest idea of such a catas­tro­phe nev­er oc­curred to her as she made the great re­solve now al­lud­ed to.

And then she slept; and then she rose re­freshed; and met her fa­ther with her kind­est em­brace and most lov­ing smiles; and on the whole their break­fast was by no means so triste as had been their din­ner the day be­fore; and then, mak­ing some ex­cuse to her fa­ther for so soon leav­ing him, she start­ed on the com­mence­ment of her op­er­ations.

She knew that John Bold was in Lon­don, and that, there­fore, the scene it­self could not be en­act­ed to­day; but she al­so knew that he was soon to be home, prob­ably on the next day, and it was nec­es­sary that some lit­tle plan for meet­ing him should be con­cert­ed with his sis­ter Mary. When she got up to the house, she went, as usu­al, in­to the morn­ing sit­ting-​room, and was star­tled by per­ceiv­ing, by a stick, a great­coat, and sundry parcels which were ly­ing about, that Bold must al­ready have re­turned.

‘John has come back so sud­den­ly,’ said Mary, com­ing in­to the room; ‘he has been trav­el­ling all night.’

‘Then I’ll come up again some oth­er time,’ said Eleanor, about to beat a re­treat in her sud­den dis­may.

‘He’s out now, and will be for the next two hours,’ said the oth­er; ‘he’s with that hor­rid Finney; he on­ly came to see him, and he re­turns by the mail train tonight.’

Re­turns by the mail train tonight, thought Eleanor to her­self, as she strove to screw up her courage–away again tonight–then it must be now or nev­er; and she again sat down, hav­ing risen to go. She wished the or­deal could have been post­poned: she had ful­ly made up her mind to do the deed, but she had not made up her mind to do it this very day; and now she felt ill at ease, astray, and in dif­fi­cul­ty.

‘Mary,’ she be­gan, ‘I must see your broth­er be­fore he goes back.’

‘Oh yes, of course,’ said the oth­er; ‘I know he’ll be de­light­ed to see you’; and she tried to treat it as a mat­ter of course, but she was not the less sur­prised; for Mary and Eleanor had dai­ly talked over John Bold and his con­duct, and his love, and Mary would in­sist on call­ing Eleanor her sis­ter, and would scold her for not call­ing Bold by his Chris­tian name; and Eleanor would half con­fess her love, but like a mod­est maid­en would protest against such fa­mil­iar­ities even with the name of her lover; and so they talked hour af­ter hour, and Mary Bold, who was much the el­der, looked for­ward with hap­py con­fi­dence to the day when Eleanor would not be ashamed to call her her sis­ter. She was, how­ev­er, ful­ly sure that just at present Eleanor would be much more like­ly to avoid her broth­er than to seek him.

‘Mary, I must see your broth­er, now, to­day, and beg from him a great favour’; and she spoke with a solemn air, not at all usu­al to her; and then she went on, and opened to her friend all her plan, her well-​weighed scheme for sav­ing her fa­ther from a sor­row which would, she said, if it last­ed, bring him to his grave. ‘But, Mary,’ she con­tin­ued, ‘you must now, you know, cease any jok­ing about me and Mr Bold; you must now say no more about that; I am not ashamed to beg this favour from your broth­er, but when I have done so, there can nev­er be any­thing fur­ther be­tween us’; and this she said with a staid and solemn air, quite wor­thy of Jeph­thah’s daugh­ter or of Iphi­ge­nia ei­ther.

It was quite clear that Mary Bold did not fol­low the ar­gu­ment. That Eleanor Hard­ing should ap­peal, on be­half of her fa­ther, to Bold’s bet­ter feel­ings seemed to Mary quite nat­ural; it seemed quite nat­ural that he should re­lent, over­come by such fil­ial tears, and by so much beau­ty; but, to her think­ing, it was at any rate equal­ly nat­ural, that hav­ing re­lent­ed, John should put his arm round his mis­tress’s waist, and say: ‘Now hav­ing set­tled that, let us be man and wife, and all will end hap­pi­ly!’ Why his good na­ture should not be re­ward­ed, when such re­ward would op­er­ate to the dis­ad­van­tage of none, Mary, who had more sense than ro­mance, could not un­der­stand; and she said as much.

Eleanor, how­ev­er, was firm, and made quite an elo­quent speech to sup­port her own view of the ques­tion: she could not con­de­scend, she said, to ask such a favour on any oth­er terms than those pro­posed. Mary might, per­haps, think her high- flown, but she had her own ideas, and she could not sub­mit to sac­ri­fice her self-​re­spect.

‘But I am sure you love him–don’t you?’ plead­ed Mary; ‘and I am sure he loves you bet­ter than any­thing in the world.’

Eleanor was go­ing to make an­oth­er speech, but a tear came to each eye, and she could not; so she pre­tend­ed to blow her nose, and walked to the win­dow, and made a lit­tle in­ward call on her own courage, and find­ing her­self some­what sus­tained, said sen­ten­tious­ly: ‘Mary, this is non­sense.’

‘But you do love him,’ said Mary, who had fol­lowed her friend to the win­dow, and now spoke with her arms close wound round the oth­er’s waist. ‘You do love him with all your heart–you know you do; I de­fy you to de­ny it.’

‘I–’ com­menced Eleanor, turn­ing sharply round to re­fute the charge; but the in­tend­ed false­hood stuck in her throat, and nev­er came to ut­ter­ance. She could not de­ny her love, so she took plen­ti­ful­ly to tears, and leant up­on her friend’s bo­som and sobbed there, and protest­ed that, love or no love, it would make no dif­fer­ence in her re­solve, and called Mary, a thou­sand times, the most cru­el of girls, and swore her to se­cre­cy by a hun­dred oaths, and end­ed by declar­ing that the girl who could be­tray her friend’s love, even to a broth­er, would be as black a traitor as a sol­dier in a gar­ri­son who should open the city gates to the en­emy. While they were yet dis­cussing the mat­ter, Bold re­turned, and Eleanor was forced in­to sud­den ac­tion: she had ei­ther to ac­com­plish or aban­don her plan; and hav­ing slipped in­to her friend’s bed­room, as the gen­tle­man closed the hall door, she washed the marks of tears from her eyes, and re­solved with­in her­self to go through with it. ‘Tell him I am here,’ said she, ‘and com­ing in; and mind, what­ev­er you do, don’t leave us.’ So Mary in­formed her broth­er, with a some­what som­bre air, that Miss Hard­ing was in the next room, and was com­ing to speak to him.

Eleanor was cer­tain­ly think­ing more of her fa­ther than her­self, as she ar­ranged her hair be­fore the glass, and re­moved the traces of sor­row from her face; and yet I should be un­true if I said that she was not anx­ious to ap­pear well be­fore her lover: why else was she so sed­ulous with that stub­born curl that would rebel against her hand, and smooth so ea­ger­ly her ruf­fled ribands? why else did she damp her eyes to dis­pel the red­ness, and bite her pret­ty lips to bring back the colour? Of course she was anx­ious to look her best, for she was but a mor­tal an­gel af­ter all. But had she been im­mor­tal, had she flit­ted back to the sit­ting-​room on a cherub’s wings, she could not have had a more faith­ful heart, or a truer wish to save her fa­ther at any cost to her­self.

John Bold had not met her since the day when she left him in dud­geon in the cathe­dral close. Since that his whole time had been oc­cu­pied in pro­mot­ing the cause against her fa­ther, and not un­suc­cess­ful­ly. He had of­ten thought of her, and turned over in his mind a hun­dred schemes for show­ing her how dis­in­ter­est­ed was his love. He would write to her and be­seech her not to al­low the per­for­mance of a pub­lic du­ty to in­jure him in her es­ti­ma­tion; he would write to Mr Hard­ing, ex­plain all his views, and bold­ly claim the war­den’s daugh­ter, urg­ing that the un­to­ward cir­cum­stances be­tween them need be no bar to their an­cient friend­ship, or to a clos­er tie; he would throw him­self on his knees be­fore his mis­tress; he would wait and mar­ry the daugh­ter when the fa­ther has lost his home and his in­come; he would give up the law­suit and go to Aus­tralia, with her of course, leav­ing The Jupiter and Mr Finney to com­plete the case be­tween them. Some­times as he woke in the morn­ing fevered and im­pa­tient, he would blow out his brains and have done with all his cares–but this idea was gen­er­al­ly con­se­quent on an im­pru­dent sup­per en­joyed in com­pa­ny with Tom Tow­ers.

How beau­ti­ful Eleanor ap­peared to him as she slow­ly walked in­to the room! Not for noth­ing had all those lit­tle cares been tak­en. Though her sis­ter, the archdea­con’s wife, had spo­ken slight­ing­ly of her charms, Eleanor was very beau­ti­ful when seen aright. Hers was not of those im­pas­sive faces, which have the beau­ty of a mar­ble bust; fine­ly chis­elled fea­tures, per­fect in ev­ery line, true to the rules of sym­me­try, as love­ly to a stranger as to a friend, un­vary­ing un­less in sick­ness, or as age af­fects them. She had no startling bril­lian­cy of beau­ty, no pearly white­ness, no ra­di­ant car­na­tion. She had not the ma­jes­tic con­tour that riv­ets at­ten­tion, de­mands in­stant won­der and then dis­ap­points by the cold­ness of its charms. You might pass Eleanor Hard­ing in the street with­out no­tice, but you could hard­ly pass an evening with her and not lose your heart.

She had nev­er ap­peared more love­ly to her lover than she now did. Her face was an­imat­ed though it was se­ri­ous, and her full dark lus­trous eyes shone with anx­ious en­er­gy; her hand trem­bled as she took his, and she could hard­ly pro­nounce his name, when she ad­dressed him. Bold wished with all his heart that the Aus­tralian scheme was in the act of re­al­isa­tion, and that he and Eleanor were away to­geth­er, nev­er to hear fur­ther of the law­suit.

He be­gan to talk, asked af­ter her health–said some­thing about Lon­don be­ing very stupid, and more about Barch­ester be­ing very pleas­ant; de­clared the weath­er to be very hot, and then in­quired af­ter Mr Hard­ing.

‘My fa­ther is not very well,’ said Eleanor.

John Bold was very sor­ry, so sor­ry: he hoped it was noth­ing se­ri­ous, and put on the un­mean­ing­ly solemn face which peo­ple usu­al­ly use on such oc­ca­sions.

‘I es­pe­cial­ly want to speak to you about my fa­ther, Mr Bold; in­deed, I am now here on pur­pose to do so. Pa­pa is very un­hap­py, very un­hap­py in­deed, about this af­fair of the hos­pi­tal: you would pity him, Mr Bold, if you could see how wretched it has made him.’

‘Oh, Miss Hard­ing!’

‘In­deed you would–any­one would pity him; but a friend, an old friend as you are–in­deed you would. He is an al­tered man; his cheer­ful­ness has all gone, and his sweet tem­per, and his kind hap­py tone of voice; you would hard­ly know him if you saw him, Mr Bold, he is so much al­tered; and–and–if this goes on, he will die.’ Here Eleanor had re­course to her hand­ker­chief, and so al­so had her au­di­tors; but she plucked up her courage, and went on with her tale. ‘He will break his heart, and die. I am sure, Mr Bold, it was not you who wrote those cru­el things in the news­pa­per–’

John Bold ea­ger­ly protest­ed that it was not, but his heart smote him as to his in­ti­mate al­liance with Tom Tow­ers.

‘No, I am sure it was not; and pa­pa has not for a mo­ment thought so; you would not be so cru­el–but it has near­ly killed him. Pa­pa can­not bear to think that peo­ple should so speak of him, and that ev­ery­body should hear him so spo­ken of:–they have called him avari­cious, and dis­hon­est, and they say he is rob­bing the old men, and tak­ing the mon­ey of the hos­pi­tal for noth­ing.’

‘I have nev­er said so, Miss Hard­ing. I–’

‘No,’ con­tin­ued Eleanor, in­ter­rupt­ing him, for she was now in the full flood-​tide of her elo­quence; ‘no, I am sure you have not; but oth­ers have said so; and if this goes on, if such things are writ­ten again, it will kill pa­pa. Oh! Mr Bold, if you on­ly knew the state he is in! Now pa­pa does not care much about mon­ey.’

Both her au­di­tors, broth­er and sis­ter, as­sent­ed to this, and de­clared on their own knowl­edge that no man lived less ad­dict­ed to filthy lu­cre than the war­den.

‘Oh! it’s so kind of you to say so, Mary, and of you too, Mr Bold. I couldn’t bear that peo­ple should think un­just­ly of pa­pa. Do you know he would give up the hos­pi­tal al­to­geth­er, on­ly he can­not. The archdea­con says it would be cow­ard­ly, and that he would be de­sert­ing his or­der, and in­jur­ing the church. What­ev­er may hap­pen, pa­pa will not do that: he would leave the place to­mor­row will­ing­ly, and give up his house, and the in­come and all if the archdea­con–’

Eleanor was go­ing to say ‘would let him,’ but she stopped her­self be­fore she had com­pro­mised her fa­ther’s dig­ni­ty; and giv­ing a long sigh, she added–’Oh, I do so wish he would.’

‘No one who knows Mr Hard­ing per­son­al­ly ac­cus­es him for a mo­ment,’ said Bold. ‘It is he that has to bear the pun­ish­ment; it is he that suf­fers,’ said Eleanor; ‘and what for? what has he done wrong? how has he de­served this per­se­cu­tion? he that nev­er had an un­kind thought in his life, he that nev­er said an un­kind word!’ and here she broke down, and the vi­olence of her sobs stopped her ut­ter­ance.

Bold, for the fifth or sixth time, de­clared that nei­ther he nor any of his friends im­put­ed any blame per­son­al­ly to Mr Hard­ing.

‘Then why should he be per­se­cut­ed?’ ejac­ulat­ed Eleanor through her tears, for­get­ting in her ea­ger­ness that her in­ten­tion had been to hum­ble her­self as a sup­pli­ant be­fore John Bold– ‘why should he be sin­gled out for scorn and dis­grace? why should he be made so wretched? Oh! Mr Bold’–and she turned to­wards him as though the kneel­ing scene were about to be com­menced–’oh! Mr Bold, why did you be­gin all this? You, whom we all so–so–val­ued!’

To speak the truth, the re­former’s pun­ish­ment was cer­tain­ly come up­on him, for his present plight was not en­vi­able; he had noth­ing for it but to ex­cuse him­self by plat­itudes about pub­lic du­ty, which it is by no means worth while to re­peat, and to re­it­er­ate his eu­lo­gy on Mr Hard­ing’s char­ac­ter. His po­si­tion was cer­tain­ly a cru­el one: had any gen­tle­man called up­on him on be­half of Mr Hard­ing he could of course have de­clined to en­ter up­on the sub­ject; but how could he do so with a beau­ti­ful girl, with the daugh­ter of the man whom he had in­jured, with his own love?

In the mean­time Eleanor rec­ol­lect­ed her­self, and again sum­moned up her en­er­gies. ‘Mr Bold,’ said she, ‘I have come here to im­plore you to aban­don this pro­ceed­ing.’ He stood up from his seat, and looked be­yond mea­sure dis­tressed. ‘To im­plore you to aban­don it, to im­plore you to spare my fa­ther, to spare ei­ther his life or his rea­son, for one or the oth­er will pay the for­feit if this goes on. I know how much I am ask­ing, and how lit­tle right I have to ask any­thing; but I think you will lis­ten to me as it is for my fa­ther. Oh, Mr Bold, pray, pray do this for us–pray do not drive to dis­trac­tion a man who has loved you so well.’

She did not ab­so­lute­ly kneel to him, but she fol­lowed him as he moved from his chair, and laid her soft hands im­plor­ing­ly up­on his arm. Ah! at any oth­er time how exquisite­ly valu­able would have been that touch! but now he was dis­traught, dumb­found­ed and un­manned. What could he say to that sweet sup­pli­ant; how ex­plain to her that the mat­ter now was prob­ably be­yond his con­trol; how tell her that he could not quell the storm which he had raised?

‘Sure­ly, sure­ly, John, you can­not refuse her,’ said his sis­ter.

‘I would give her my soul,’ said he, ‘if it would serve her.’ ‘Oh, Mr Bold,’ said Eleanor, ‘do not speak so; I ask noth­ing for my­self; and what I ask for my fa­ther, it can­not harm you to grant.’

‘I would give her my soul, if it would serve her,’ said Bold, still ad­dress­ing his sis­ter; ‘ev­ery­thing I have is hers, if she will ac­cept it; my house, my heart, my all; ev­ery hope of my breast is cen­tred in her; her smiles are sweet­er to me than the sun, and when I see her in sor­row as she now is, ev­ery nerve in my body suf­fers. No man can love bet­ter than I love her.’

‘No, no, no,’ ejac­ulat­ed Eleanor; ‘there can be no talk of love be­tween us. Will you pro­tect my fa­ther from the evil you have brought up­on him?’

‘Oh, Eleanor, I will do any­thing; let me tell you how I love you!’

‘No, no, no!’ she al­most screamed. ‘This is un­man­ly of you, Mr Bold. Will you, will you, will you leave my fa­ther to die in peace in his qui­et home?’ and seiz­ing him by his arm and hand, she fol­lowed him across the room to­wards the door. ‘I will not leave you till you promise me; I’ll cling to you in the street; I’ll kneel to you be­fore all the peo­ple. You shall promise me this, you shall promise me this, you shall–’ And she clung to him with fixed tenac­ity, and re­it­er­at­ed her re­solve with hys­ter­ical pas­sion.

‘Speak to her, John; an­swer her,’ said Mary, be­wil­dered by the un­ex­pect­ed ve­he­mence of Eleanor’s man­ner; ‘you can­not have the cru­el­ty to refuse her.’

‘Promise me, promise me,’ said Eleanor; ’say that my fa­ther is safe–one word will do. I know how true you are; say one word, and I will let you go.’

She still held him, and looked ea­ger­ly in­to his face, with her hair di­shev­elled and her eyes all blood­shot. She had no thought now of her­self, no care now for her ap­pear­ance; and yet he thought he had nev­er seen her half so love­ly; he was amazed at the in­ten­si­ty of her beau­ty, and could hard­ly be­lieve that it was she whom he had dared to love. ‘Promise me,’ said she; ‘I will not leave you till you have promised me.’

‘I will,’ said he at length; ‘I do–all I can do, I will do.’

‘Then may God Almighty bless you for ev­er and ev­er!’ said Eleanor; and falling on her knees with her face in Mary’s lap, she wept and sobbed like a child: her strength had car­ried her through her al­lot­ted task, but now it was well nigh ex­haust­ed.

In a while she was part­ly re­cov­ered, and got up to go, and would have gone, had not Bold made her un­der­stand that it was nec­es­sary for him to ex­plain to her how far it was in his pow­er to put an end to the pro­ceed­ings which had been tak­en against Mr Hard­ing. Had he spo­ken on any oth­er sub­ject, she would have van­ished, but on that she was bound to hear him; and now the dan­ger of her po­si­tion com­menced. While she had an ac­tive part to play, while she clung to him as a sup­pli­ant, it was easy enough for her to re­ject his prof­fered love, and cast from her his ca­ress­ing words; but now–now that he had yield­ed, and was talk­ing to her calm­ly and kind­ly as to her fa­ther’s wel­fare, it was hard enough for her to do so. Then Mary Bold as­sist­ed her; but now she was quite on her broth­er’s side. Mary said but lit­tle, but ev­ery word she did say gave some di­rect and dead­ly blow. The first thing she did was to make room for her broth­er be­tween her­self and Eleanor on the so­fa: as the so­fa was full large for three, Eleanor could not re­sent this, nor could she show sus­pi­cion by tak­ing an­oth­er seat; but she felt it to be a most un­kind pro­ceed­ing. And then Mary would talk as though they three were joined in some close pe­cu­liar bond to­geth­er; as though they were in fu­ture al­ways to wish to­geth­er, con­trive to­geth­er, and act to­geth­er; and Eleanor could not gain­say this; she could not make an­oth­er speech, and say, ‘Mr Bold and I are strangers, Mary, and are al­ways to re­main so!’

He ex­plained to her that, though un­doubt­ed­ly the pro­ceed­ing against the hos­pi­tal had com­menced sole­ly with him­self, many oth­ers were now in­ter­est­ed in the mat­ter, some of whom were much more in­flu­en­tial than him­self; that it was to him alone, how­ev­er, that the lawyers looked for in­struc­tion as to their do­ings, and, more im­por­tant still, for the pay­ment of their bills; and he promised that he would at once give them no­tice that it was his in­ten­tion to aban­don the cause. He thought, he said, that it was not prob­able that any ac­tive steps would be tak­en af­ter he had se­ced­ed from the mat­ter, though it was pos­si­ble that some pass­ing al­lu­sion might still be made to the hos­pi­tal in the dai­ly Jupiter. He promised, how­ev­er, that he would use his best in­flu­ence to pre­vent any fur­ther per­son­al al­lu­sion be­ing made to Mr Hard­ing. He then sug­gest­ed that he would on that af­ter­noon ride over him­self to Dr Grant­ly, and in­form him of his al­tered in­ten­tions on the sub­ject, and with this view, he post­poned his im­me­di­ate re­turn to Lon­don.

This was all very pleas­ant, and Eleanor did en­joy a sort of tri­umph in the feel­ing that she had at­tained the ob­ject for which she had sought this in­ter­view; but still the part of Iphi­ge­nia was to be played out. The gods had heard her prayer, grant­ed her re­quest, and were they not to have their promised sac­ri­fice? Eleanor was not a girl to de­fraud them wil­ful­ly; so, as soon as she de­cent­ly could, she got up for her bon­net.

‘Are you go­ing so soon?’ said Bold, who half an hour since would have giv­en a hun­dred pounds that he was in Lon­don, and she still at Barch­ester.

‘Oh yes!’ said she. ‘I am so much obliged to you; pa­pa will feel this to be so kind.’ She did not quite ap­pre­ci­ate all her fa­ther’s feel­ings. ‘Of course I must tell him, and I will say that you will see the archdea­con.’

‘But may I not say one word for my­self?’ said Bold.

‘I’ll fetch you your bon­net, Eleanor,’ said Mary, in the act of leav­ing the room.

‘Mary, Mary,’ said she, get­ting up and catch­ing her by her dress; ‘don’t go, I’ll get my bon­net my­self.’ But Mary, the traitress, stood fast by the door, and per­mit­ted no such re­treat. Poor Iphi­ge­nia!

And with a vol­ley of im­pas­sioned love, John Bold poured forth the feel­ings of his heart, swear­ing, as men do, some truths and many false­hoods; and Eleanor re­peat­ed with ev­ery shade of ve­he­mence the ‘No, no, no,’ which had had a short time since so much ef­fect; but now, alas! its strength was gone. Let her be nev­er so ve­he­ment, her ve­he­mence was not re­spect­ed; all her ‘No, no, no’s’ were met with counter-​as­sev­er­ations, and at last were over­pow­ered. The ground was cut from un­der her on ev­ery side. She was pressed to say whether her fa­ther would ob­ject; whether she her­self had any aver­sion (aver­sion! God help her, poor girl! the word near­ly made her jump in­to his arms); any oth­er pref­er­ence (this she loud­ly dis­claimed); whether it was im­pos­si­ble that she should love him (Eleanor could not say that it was im­pos­si­ble): and so at last all her de­fences de­mol­ished, all her maid­en bar­ri­ers swept away, she ca­pit­ulat­ed, or rather marched out with the hon­ours of war, van­quished ev­ident­ly, pal­pa­bly van­quished, but still not re­duced to the ne­ces­si­ty of con­fess­ing it.

And so the al­tar on the shore of the mod­ern Aulis reeked with no sac­ri­fice.