Did he love her? The
question made Elinor tremble. She folded her letter, and turned the
conversation into another channel. But the words haunted her, "I would
give my fortune to be Algernon." Could he be in earnest? Perhaps it was
only a passing compliment--men were fond of paying such. But the Squire
was no flatterer; he seldom said what he did not mean. She re-read
Algernon's letter, and thought no more about the words that his brother
had let fall.
That letter was the last she ever received from her lover. After
enduring the most torturing suspense for eighteen months, and writing
frequently to demand the cause of his unnatural silence, Elinor gave
herself up to the most gloomy forebodings. Mr. Hurdlestone endeavored to
soothe her fears, and win her to the belief that his brother's letters
must have miscarried, through the negligence of private hands, to whom
they might have been entrusted. But when these suggestions failed in
arousing her from the stupor of grief into which she had fallen, he
offered the most tender consolations which could be administered to a
wounded mind--an appearance of heartfelt sympathy in its sufferings.
While musing one morning over the cause of Algernon's silence, the
Squire's groom approached the open window at which she was seated, and
placed a letter in her hands; it was edged and sealed with black; and
Elinor hastily broke the seal, and opened it.
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