But the Squire was not to be put down.
'Besides,' he continued, without noticing her interruption, 'Pamela writes to me this morning that she wants my consent to her training as an Army nurse.' 'Oh no,' cried Elizabeth--'not yet.

She is too young!' Her face showed her distress.

So she was really driving this poor child, whom she would so easily have loved had it been allowed her, out of her home! No doubt Pamela had seized on the pretext of her 'row' with her father to carry out her threat to Elizabeth of 'running away,' and before Elizabeth's return to Mannering, so that neither the Squire nor any one else should guess at the real reason.
But how could Elizabeth acquiesce?
Yet if she revealed the story of Pamela's attack upon her to the Squire, what would happen?
Only a widening of the breach between him and his daughter.

Elizabeth, of course, might depart, but Pamela would be none the more likely to return to face her father's wrath.
And again for the hundredth time Elizabeth said to herself, in mingled pain and exasperation--'What _did_ she mean ?--and what have I ever done that she should behave so ?' Then she raised her eyes.

Something impelled her--as it were a strong telepathic influence.