eciprocated, whatever the respect may have been.
He never spoke of Eleanore Leavenworth or, indeed, mentioned the family
or its trouble in any way; till I began to feel that all this reticence
had a cause deeper than the nature of the man, and that if he did
speak, it would be to some purpose. This suspicion, of course, kept me
restlessly eager in his presence. I could not forbear giving him sly
glances now and then, to see how he acted when he believed himself
unobserved; but he was ever the same, a passive, diligent, unexcitable
worker.

This continual beating against a stone wall, for thus I regarded it,
became at last almost unendurable. Clavering shy, and the secretary
unapproachable--how was I to gain anything? The short interviews I had
with Mary did not help matters. Haughty, constrained, feverish, pettish,
grateful, appealing, everything at once, and never twice the same, I
learned to dread, even while I coveted, an interview. She appeared to be
passing through some crisis which occasioned her the keenest suffering.
I have seen her, when she thought herself alone, throw up her hands
with the gesture which we use to ward off a coming evil or shut out some
hideous vision. I have likewise beheld her standing with her proud head
abased, her nervous hands drooping, her whole form sinking and inert, as
if the pressure of a weight she could neither upbear nor cast aside
had robbed her even of the show of resistance. But this was only once.
Ordinarily she was at least stately in her trouble. Even when the
softest appeal came into her eyes she stood erect, and retained her
expression of conscious power. Even the night she met me in the hall,
with feverish cheeks and lips trembling with eagerness, only to turn and
fly again without giving utterance to what she had to say, she comported
herself with a fiery dignity that was well nigh imposing.

That all this meant something, I was sure; and so I kept my patience
alive with the hope that some day she would make a revelation. Those
quivering lips would not always remain closed; the secret involving
Eleanore's honor and happiness would be divulged by this restless being,
if by no one else. Nor was the memory of that extraordinary, if not
cruel, accusation I had heard her make enough to destroy this hope--for
hope it had grown to be--so that I found myself insensibly shortening
my time with Mr. Harwell in the library, and extending my _tete-a-tete_
visits with Mary in the re