Volume V Part 9 (1/2)

Her brow shewed rising displeasure; but Harleigh was intractable.

'p.r.o.nounce not,' he cried, 'an interdiction! I make no claim, no plea, no condition. I will speak wholly as an impartial man;--and have you not condescended to tell me, that as a friend, if to that t.i.tle,--so limited, yet so honourable,--I would confine myself,--you would not disdain to consult with me? As such, I am now here. I feel, I respect, I revere the delicacy of all your ideas, the perfection of your conduct! I will put, therefore, aside, all that relates not simply to yourself, and to your position; I will speak to you, for the moment, and in his absence,--as--as Lord Melbury!--as your brother!--'

An involuntary smile here unbent the knitting brow of Juliet, who could not feel offended, or sorry, that Sir Jaspar had revealed the history of her birth.

She desired, nevertheless, to pa.s.s, refusing every species of discussion.

'If you will not answer, will not speak,' cried Harleigh, still obstructing her way, 'fear not, at least, to hear! Are you not at liberty? Is not your persecutor gone?--Can he ever return?'

'Gone?' repeated Juliet.

'I have myself seen him embark! I rode after his chaise, I pursued it to the sea-coast, I saw him under sail.'

Juliet, with uplifted eyes, clasped her hands, from an emotion of ungovernable joy; which a thousand blushes betrayed her vain struggles to suppress.

Harleigh observed not this unmoved: 'Ah, Madam!' he cried, 'since, thus critically, you have escaped;--since, thus happily, you are released;--since no church ritual has ever sanctioned the sacrilegious violence--'

'Spare all ineffectual controversy!' cried Juliet, a.s.suming an air and tone of composure, with which her quick heaving bosom was ill in harmony; 'I can neither talk nor listen upon this subject. You know, now, my story: dread and atrocious as is my connection, my faith to it must be unbroken, till I have seen the Bishop! and till the iniquity of my chains may be proved, and my restoration to my violated freedom may be legalized. Do not look so shocked; so angry, must I say?--Remember, that a point of conscience can be settled only internally! I will speak, therefore, but one word more; and I must hear no reply: little as I feel to belong to the person in question, I cannot consider myself to be my own! 'Tis a tie which, whether or not it binds me to him, excludes me, while thus circ.u.mstanced, from all others!--This, Sir, is my last word!--Adieu!'

Harleigh, though looking nearly petrified, still stood before her. 'You fly us, then,' he cried, resentfully, though mournfully, 'both alike?

You put us upon a par?--'

'No!' answered Juliet, hastily, 'him I fly because I hate;--You--'

The deep scarlet which mounted into her whole face finished the sentence; in defiance of a sudden and abrupt breaking off, that meant and hoped to s.n.a.t.c.h the unguarded phrase from comprehension.

But Harleigh felt its fullest contrast; his hopes, his wishes, his whole soul completed it by You, because I love!--not that he could persuade himself that Juliet would have used those words; he knew the contrary; knew that she would sooner thus situated expire; but such, he felt, was the impulse of her thoughts; such the consciousness that broke off her speech.

He durst not venture at any acknowledgement; but, once appeased in his doubts, and satisfied in his feelings, he respected her opinions, and, yielding to her increased, yet speechless eagerness to be gone, he silently, but with eyes of expressive tenderness, ceased to obstruct her pa.s.sage.

Utterly confounded herself, at the half-p.r.o.nounced thought, thus inadvertently surprised from her, and thus palpably seized and interpreted, she strove to devize some term that might obviate dangerous consequences; but she felt her cheeks so hot, so cold, and again so hot, that she durst not trust her face to his observation; and, accepting the opening which he made for her, she was returning to her cottage, tortured,--and yet soothed,--by indescribable emotions; when an energetic cry of 'Ellis!--Harleigh!--Ellis!' made her raise her eyes to the adjacent hill, and perceive Elinor.

CHAPTER Lx.x.xV

With arms extended, and a commanding air, Elinor, having made signs to the dismayed Harleigh not to move, awaited, where she stood, the terrified, but obedient Juliet.

'Avoid me not!' she cried, 'Ellis! why should you avoid me? I have given you back your plighted word; and the pride of Harleigh has saved him from all bonds. Why, then, should you fly?'

Juliet attempted not to make any answer.

'The conference, the last conference,' continued Elinor, 'which so ardently I have demanded, is still unaccorded. Repeatedly I could have surprized it, singly, from Harleigh; but--'

She stopt, coloured, looked indignant, yet ashamed, and then haughtily went on: 'Imagine not my courage tarnished by cowardly apprehensions of misinterpretation,--suspicion,--censoriousness;... no! let the world sneer at its pleasure! Its spleen will never keep pace with my contempt.

But Harleigh!--I brave not the censure of Harleigh! even though prepared, and resolved, to quit him for evermore! And, with ideas punctilious such as his of feminine delicacy, he might blame, perhaps,--should I seek him alone--'

She blushed more deeply, and, with extreme agitation, added, 'Harleigh, when we shall meet no more, will always honourably say, Her pa.s.sion for me might be tinctured with madness, but its purity was without alloy!'

She now turned away, to hide a starting tear; but, soon resuming her usually lively manner, said, 'I have traced you, at last, together; and by means of our caustick, bilious fellow-traveller, Riley; whom I encountered by accident; and who runs, snarling, yet curious, after his fellow-creatures, working at making himself enemies, as if enmity were a pleasing, or lucrative profession! From him I learnt, that he had just seen you,--and together!--near Salisbury. I discovered you, Ellis, two days ago; but Harleigh, though I have been roving some time in your vicinity, only this moment.'

A sudden shriek now broke from her, and Juliet, affrighted and looking around, perceived Harleigh pacing hastily away.