'Terrible!' cried Ellis, trembling; 'what may be her design? And what is there not to dread! Indeed I dare not encounter her!' 'There can be, unhappily, but one opinion of her purpose,' he answered: 'She is wretched, and from impatience of life, wishes to seek death. Nevertheless, the cause of her disgust to existence not being any intolerable calamity, though the most probing, perhaps, of disappointments, life, with all its evils, still clings to her; and she as little knows how to get rid of, as how to support it.' 'You cannot, Sir, mean to doubt her sincerity?' 'Far from it. Her mind is as noble as her humour and taste are flighty; yet, where she has some great end in view, she studies, in common with all those with whom the love of frame is the ruling passion, Effect, public Effect, rather than what she either thinks to be right, or feels to be desirable.' 'Alas, poor Miss Joddrel! You are still, then, Sir, unmoved--' She stopt, and blushed, for the examining eyes of Harleigh said, 'Do you wish to see me conquered?' Pleased that she stopt, enchanted that she blushed, an expression of pleasure illumined his countenance, which instantly drew into that of Ellis a cold severity, that chilled, or rather that punished his rising transport. Ah! thought he, was it then but conscious modesty, not anxious doubt, that mantled in her cheek? 'Pity,' he returned, 'in a woman to a man, is grateful, is lenient, is consoling. It seems an attribute of her sex, and the haughtiest of ours accepts it from her without disdain or disgrace; but pity from a man--upon similar causes--must be confined to his own breast. Its expression always seems insolent. Who is the female that could wish, that could even bear to excite it? Not Elinor, certainly! with all her excentricities, she would consider it as an outrage.' 'Give it her, then,' cried Ellis, with involuntary vivacity, 'the sooner to cure her!' 'Nay, who knows,' he smilingly returned, 'since extremes meet, that absconding may not produce the same effect? At all events, it will retard the execution of her terrible project; and to retard an act of voluntary violence, where the imagination is as ardent, the mind as restless, and the will as despotic as those of Elinor, is commonly to avert it. Some new idea ordinarily succeeds, and the old one, in losing its first moment of effervescence, generally evaporates in disgust.' 'Do not, Sir, trust to this! do not be so cruel as to abandon her! Think of the desperation into which you will cast her; and if you scruple to avow your pity, act at least with humanity, in watching, soothing, and appeasing her, while you suffer me quietly to escape; that neither the sound, nor the thought, of my existing so near her, may produce fresh irritation.'