Adelaide shook her head.  “I could not eat,” she said sadly.

“You ought at least to try; it would do you good,” he urged.

“No, you will not? well, then, you will lie down; indeed, you must; you will certainly be ill.”

Adelaide looked the question she dared not ask.

“No,” he said, “there’s no immediate danger, and if there should be any important change I will call you.”

And, reassured on that point, she yielded to his persuasions and went to bed.

CHAPTER XII.

“I drink
So deep of grief, that he must only think,
Not dare to speak, that would express my woe: 
Small rivers murmur, deep gulfs silent flow.”

MARSTON’S SOPHONIESA.

It was no want of love for his child that had kept Mr. Dinsmore from at once obeying Adelaide’s summons.  He had left the place where she supposed him to be, and thus it happened that her letters did not reach him nearly so soon as she had expected.

But when at length they were put into his hands, and he read of Elsie’s entreaty that he would come to her, and saw by the date how long she had been ill, his distress and alarm were most excessive, and within an hour he had set out on his return, travelling night and day with the greatest possible despatch.

Strangers wondered at the young, fine-looking man, who seemed in such desperate haste to reach the end of his journey—­sat half the time with his watch in his hand, and looked so despairingly wretched whenever the train stopped for a moment.

Elsie was indeed, as Adelaide had said, the very idol of his heart; and at times he suffered but little less than she did; but his will was stronger even than his love, and he had fondly hoped that this separation from him would produce the change in her which he so much desired; and had thus far persuaded himself that he was only using the legitimate authority of a parent, and therefore acting quite right; and, in fact, with the truest kindness, because, as he reasoned, she would be happier all her life if once relieved from the supposed necessity of conforming to rules so strict and unbending.  But suddenly his eyes seemed to have been opened to see his conduct in a new light, and he called himself a brute, a monster, a cruel persecutor, and longed to annihilate time and space, that he might clasp his child in his arms, tell her how dearly he loved her, and assure her that never again would he require her to do aught against her conscience.

Again and again he took out his sister’s letters and read and re-read them, vainly trying to assure himself that there was no danger; that she could not be so very ill.  “She is so young,” he said to himself, “and has always been healthy, it cannot be that she will die.”  He started and shuddered at the word.  “Oh, no! it is impossible!” he mentally exclaimed.  “God is too merciful to send me so terrible an affliction.”