“Elinor felt this, and would have spared her what pain she could; but it was not possible for herself to be insensible of the fast-fading remains of her withering youth and blighted beauty. The place--the place itself, was the principal cause of that mortal disease that was consuming her; yet from that place she felt she had less resolution to tear herself every day. So she lived, like those sufferers in eastern prisons, who are not allowed to taste food unless mixed with poison, and who must perish alike whether they eat or forbear. “Once, urged by intolerable pain of heart, (tortured by living in the placid light of John Sandal’s sunny smile), she confessed this to Margaret. She said, “It is impossible for me to support this existence--impossible! To tread the floor which those steps have trod--to listen for their approach, and when they come, feel they do not bear him we seek--to see every object around me reflect his image, but never--never to see the reality--to see the door open which once disclosed his figure, and when it opens, not to see _him_, and when he does appear, to see him not what he was--to feel he is the same and not the same,--the same to the eye, but not to the heart--to struggle thus between the dream of imagination and the cruel awaking of reality--Oh! Margaret--that undeception plants a dagger in the heart, whose point no human hand can extract, and whose venom no human hand can heal!” Margaret wept as Elinor spoke thus, and slowly, very slowly, expressed her consent that Elinor should quit the Castle, if it was necessary for her peace.