"You see, John," said Mrs. Dennistoun, "Elinor knows that the right is on her side: but she will consent to say nothing about it to any one--to give herself out as the offender rather--that is to say, as an ill-disciplined person that cannot put up with anything, as you seem to have said." John laughed with vexation, yet a kind of amusement. "I never said it nor thought it: still if it pleases her to think so---- The wiser thing if this separation is final----" "If it is final!" Elinor cried. She raised herself up again in her chair, and contemplated the unfortunate John with a sort of tragic superiority. "Do you think that of me," she said, "that I would take such a step as this and that it should not be final? Is dying final? Could one do such a thing as this and change?" "Such things have been done," said John. "Elinor, forgive me. I must say it--it is all your life that is in the balance, and another life. There is this infant to be struggled over, perhaps rent in two by those who should have united to take care of him--and it's a boy, I hear. There's his name and his after-life to think of--a child without a father, perhaps the heir of a family to which he will not belong. Elinor--tell her, aunt, you understand: is it my wish to hand her back to--to---- No, I'll speak no names. But you know I disliked it always, opposed it always. It is not out of any favour to--to the other side. But she ought to take all these things into account. Her own position, and the position in the future of the child----" Elinor had crushed her fan with her hands, and Mrs. Dennistoun let the knitting with which she had gone on in spite of all fall at last in her lap. There was a little pause. John Tatham's voice itself had began to falter, or rather swelled in sound as when a stream swells in flood. "I do not go into the question about women and what they ought to put up with," said John, resuming. "There's many things that law can do nothing for--and nature in many ways makes it harder for women, I acknowledge. We cannot change that. Think what her position will be--neither a wife nor with the freedom of a widow; and the boy, bearing the name of one he must almost be taught to think badly of--for one of them must be in the wrong----" "He shall never, never hear that name; he shall know nothing, he shall be free of every bond; his mind shall never be cramped or twisted or troubled by any--man--if I live." This Elinor said, lifting her pale face from her hands with eyes that flashed and shone with a blaze of excitement and weakness. "There already," said John, "is a tremendous condition--if you live! Who can make sure that they will live? We must all die--some sooner, some later--and you wearing yourself out with excitement, that never were strong; you exposing your heart, the weakest organ----"