Page:Gaskell--A dark night's work.djvu/170

Rh hung over you?” No answer. “Does it still hang over you?”

“Yes!” she whispered, with a heavy sigh.

“And your father knows this, of course?”

“Yes!” again, in the same tone; and then silence.

“I think it is doing him harm,” at length Ralph went on, decidedly.

“I am afraid it is,” she said, in a low tone.

“I wish you would tell me what it is,” he said, a little impatiently. “I might be able to help you about it.”

“No! you could not,” replied Ellinor. “I was sorry to my very heart to tell you what I did; I did not want help; all that is past. But I wanted to know if you thought that a person situated as I was, was justified in marrying any one ignorant of what might happen, what I do hope and trust never will.”

“But if I don’t know what you are alluding to in this mysterious way, you must see—don’t you see, love?—I am in the position of the ignorant man whom I think you said you could not feel it right to marry. Why don’t you tell me straight out what it is?” He could not help his irritation betraying itself in his tones and manner of speaking. She bent a little forward, and looked full into his face, as though to pierce to the very heart’s truth of him. Then