welcome visitor could not
stop long; and then she would go down and have her little confidence with
her father, and beg him to see Mr. Livingstone when he came next morning,
and dismiss him as gently as might be.

She sat on in the window-seat; dreaming waking dreams of future
happiness. She kept losing herself in such thoughts, and became almost
afraid of forgetting why she sat there. Presently she felt cold, and got
up to fetch a shawl, in which she muffled herself and resumed her place.
It seemed to her growing very late; the moonlight was coming fuller and
fuller into the garden and the blackness of the shadow was more
concentrated and stronger. Surely Mr. Dunster could not have gone away
along the dark shrubbery-path so noiselessly but what she must have heard
him? No! there was the swell of voices coming up through the window from
her father's study: angry voices they were; and her anger rose
sympathetically, as she knew that her father was being irritated. There
was a sudden movement, as of chairs pushed hastily aside, and then a
mysterious unaccountable noise--heavy, sudden; and then a slight movement
as of chairs again; and then a profound stillness. Ellinor leaned her
head against the side of the window to listen more intently, for some
mysterious instinct made her sick and faint. No sound--no noise. Only
by-and-by she heard, what we have all heard at such times of intent
listening, the beating of the pulses of her heart, and then the whirling
rush of blood through her head. How long did this last? She never knew.
By-and-by she heard her father's hurried footstep in his bedroom, next to
hers; but when she ran thither to speak to him, and ask him what was
amiss--if anything had been--if she might come to him now about Mr.
Livingstone's letter, she found that he had gone down again to his study,
and almost at the same moment she heard the little private outer door of
that room open; some one went out, and then there were hurried footsteps
along the shrubbery-path. She thought, of course, that it was Mr.
Dunster leaving the house; and went back for Mr. Livingstone's letter.
Having found it, she passed through her father's room to the private
staircase, thinking that if she went by the more regular way, she would
have run the risk of disturbing Miss Monro, and perhaps of being
questioned in the morning. Even in passing down this remote staircase,
she trod softly for fear of being overheard. When she en