Volume I Part 31 (2/2)
”A very young, a very beautiful, a very wretched, girl!” he answered.
”And you love her?” she said, with an effort at firmness, which itself proved the violence of her emotion.
”By your life! Julia, I do not!” he replied, with an energy, that spoke well for the truth of his a.s.severation.
”Nor ever loved her?”
”Nor ever-_loved_ her, Julia.” But he hesitated a little as he said it; and laid a peculiar stress on the word loved, which did not escape the anxious ears of the lovely being, whose whole soul hung suspended on his speech.
”Why not?” she asked, after a moment's pause, ”if she be so very young, and so very beautiful?”
”I might answer, because I never saw her, 'till I loved one more beautiful. But-”
”But you will not!” she interrupted him vehemently. ”Oh! if you love me?
if you _do_ love me, Paullus, do not answer me so.”
”And wherefore not?” he asked her, half smiling, though little mirthful in his heart, at her impetuosity.
”Because if you descend to flatter,” answered the fair girl quietly, ”I shall be sure that you intended to deceive me.”
”It would be strictly true, notwithstanding. For though, as she says, we met years ago, she was but a child then; and, since that time, I never saw her until four or five days ago-”
”And since then, how often?” Julia again interrupted him; for, in the intensity of her anxiety, she could not wait the full answer to one question, before another suggested itself to her mind, and found voice at the instant.
”Once, Julia.”
”Only once?”
”Once only, by the G.o.ds!”
”You have not told me wherefore it was, that you never loved her!”
”Have I not told you, that I never saw her till a few days, a few hours, I might have said, ago? and does not that tell you wherefore, Julia?”
”But there is something more. There is another reason. Oh! tell me, I adjure you, by all that you hold dearest, tell me!”
”There is another reason. I told you that she was very young, and very beautiful; but, Julia, she was also very guilty!”
”Guilty!” exclaimed the fair girl, blus.h.i.+ng fiery red, ”guilty of loving you! Oh! Paullus! Paullus!” and between shame, and anger, and the repulsive shock that every pure and feminine mind experiences in hearing of a sister's frailty, she buried her face in her hands, and wept aloud.
”Guilty, before I ever heard her name, or knew that she existed,” answered the young man, fervently; but his heart smote him somewhat, as he spoke; though what he said was but the simple truth, and it was well for him perhaps at the present moment, that Julia did not see his face. For there was much perturbation in it, and it is like that she would have judged even more hardly of that perturbation than it entirely deserved. He paused for a moment, and then added,
”But if the guilt of woman can be excusable at all, she can plead more in extenuation of her errors, than any of her s.e.x that ever fell from virtue.
She is most penitent; and might have been, but for fate and the atrocious wickedness of others, a most n.o.ble being-as she is now a most glorious ruin.”
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