CHAPTER VIII.
"Full many a miserable year hath passed:
She knows him as one dead, or worse than dead:
And many a change her varied life hath known;
But her heart none."
MATURIN.
Since her interview with the angler, which was interrupted by the
appearance of Fanshawe, Ellen Langton's hitherto calm and peaceful mind
had been in a state of insufferable doubt and dismay. She was imperatively
called upon--at least, she so conceived--to break through the rules which
nature and education impose upon her sex, to quit the protection of those
whose desire for her welfare was true and strong, and to trust herself,
for what purpose she scarcely knew, to a stranger, from whom the
instinctive purity of her mind would involuntarily have shrunk, under
whatever circumstances she had met him. The letter which she had received
from the hands of the angler had seemed to her inexperience to prove
beyond a doubt that the bearer was the friend of her father, and
authorized by him, if her duty and affection were stronger than her fears,
to guide her to his retreat. The letter spoke vaguely of losses and
misfortunes, and of a necessity for concealment on her father's part, and
secrecy on hers; and, to the credit of Ellen's not very romantic
understanding, it must be acknowledged that the mystery of the plot had
nearly prevented its success.
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