I Say No

by Wilkie Collins

  CHAPTER LXIV. ON THE WAY TO LONDON.

  The parting words had been spoken. Emily and her companion were on theirway to London.

  For some little time, they traveled in silence--alone in the railwaycarriage. After submitting as long as she could to lay an embargo on theuse of her tongue, Mrs. Ellmother started the conversation by means of aquestion: "Do you think Mr. Mirabel will get over it, miss?"

  "It's useless to ask me," Emily said. "Even the great man from Edinburghis not able to decide yet, whether he will recover or not."

  "You have taken me into your confidence, Miss Emily, as youpromised--and I have got something in my mind in consequence. May Imention it without giving offense?"

  "What is it?"

  "I wish you had never taken up with Mr. Mirabel."

  Emily was silent. Mrs. Ellmother, having a design of her own toaccomplish, ventured to speak more plainly. "I often think of Mr. AlbanMorris," she proceeded. "I always did like him, and I always shall."

  Emily suddenly pulled down her veil. "Don't speak of him!" she said.

  "I didn't mean to offend you."

  "You don't offend me. You distress me. Oh, how often I have wished--!"She threw herself back in a corner of the carriage and said no more.

  Although not remarkable for the possession of delicate tact, Mrs.Ellmother discovered that the best course she could now follow was acourse of silence.

  Even at the time when she had most implicitly trusted Mirabel, thefear that she might have acted hastily and harshly toward Alban hadoccasionally troubled Emily's mind. The impression produced by laterevents had not only intensified this feeling, but had presented themotives of that true friend under an entirely new point of view. If shehad been left in ignorance of the manner of her father's death--as Albanhad designed to leave her; as she would have been left, but for thetreachery of Francine--how happily free she would have been fromthoughts which it was now a terror to her to recall. She would haveparted from Mirabel, when the visit to the pleasant country house hadcome to an end, remembering him as an amusing acquaintance and nothingmore. He would have been spared, and she would have been spared, theshock that had so cruelly assailed them both. What had she gainedby Mrs. Rook's detestable confession? The result had been perpetualdisturbance of mind provoked by self-torturing speculations on thesubject of the murder. If Mirabel was innocent, who was guilty? Thefalse wife, without pity and without shame--or the brutal husband, wholooked capable of any enormity? What was her future to be? How was itall to end? In the despair of that bitter moment--seeing her devoted oldservant looking at her with kind compassionate eyes--Emily's troubledspirit sought refuge in impetuous self-betrayal; the very betrayal whichshe had resolved should not escape her, hardly a minute since!

  She bent forward out of her corner, and suddenly drew up her veil. "Doyou expect to see Mr. Alban Morris, when we get back?" she asked.

  "I should like to see him, miss--if you have no objection."

  "Tell him I am ashamed of myself! and say I ask his pardon with all myheart!"

  "The Lord be praised!" Mrs. Ellmother burst out--and then, when it wastoo late, remembered the conventional restraints appropriate to theoccasion. "Gracious, what a fool I am!" she said to herself. "Beautifulweather, Miss Emily, isn't it?" she continued, in a desperate hurry tochange the subject.

  Emily reclined again in her corner of the carriage. She smiled, for thefirst time since she had become Mrs. Delvin's guest at the tower.

  BOOK THE LAST--AT HOME AGAIN.