Apprehensive that he was watching for an opportunity to again torment her, she turned into a small apartment called the Print Closet, of which the door was open; purposing there to wait till he should have passed on.
There, however, she had no sooner entered, than, examining the beautiful engravings of Sir Robert Strange, she perceived Harleigh.
Eagerly and with delight he advanced, and sought, once more, to take her hand. A look of solemnity repressed him; but ’twas a solemnity mixt with sorrow, not anger.
‘Generous Mr Harleigh!’ she faintly articulated, while endeavouring to disperse the tears that again strove to find their way down her cheeks; ‘can you then, thus unabatedly preserve your good opinion of an unknown Wanderer, ... who seems the sport of insult and misfortune?’
Almost dissolved with tender feelings at this question, Harleigh, gently overpowering her opposition, irresistibly seized her hand, repeating, ‘My good opinion? my reverence, rather!—my veneration is yours!—and a confidence in your worth that has no limits!’
Ashamed of the situation into which a sudden impulse of gratitude had involuntarily betrayed her, the varying hues of her now white, now crimson cheeks manifested alternate distress and confusion; while she struggled incessantly to disengage her hand; but the happy heart of Harleigh felt so delightedly its possession, that she struggled in vain.
‘Yet, let not that confidence,’ he continued, ‘be always the offspring of fascination! Give it, at length, some other food than conjecture! not to remove doubts; I have none! but to solve difficulties that rob me of rest.—’
‘I am sorry, Sir, very sorry, if I cause you any uneasiness,’ said Juliet, resuming her usual calmness of manner; yet with bent down eyes, that neither ventured to meet his, nor to cast a glance at the hand which she still fruitlessly strove to withdraw; ‘but indeed you must not detain me;—no, not a minute!’
Enchanted by the mildness of this remonstrance, little as its injunction met his wishes; ‘Half a minute, then!’ he gaily replied, ‘accord me only half a minute, and I will try to be contented. Suffer me but to ask,—’
‘No, Sir, you must ask me nothing! There is no question whatever I can answer!—’
‘I will not make one, then! I will only offer an observation. There is a something—I know not what; nor can I divine; but something there is strange, singular,—very unusual, and very striking, between you and Lord Melbury! Pardon, pardon my abruptness! You allow me no time to be scrupulous. You promise him your confidence,—that confidence so long, so fervently solicited by another!—so inexorably withheld!—’
‘I earnestly desire,’ cried Juliet, recovering her look of openness, and raising her eyes; ‘the sanction of Lord Melbury to the countenance and kindness of Lady Aurora.’
‘Thanks! thanks!’ cried Harleigh; who in this short, but expressive explanation, flattered himself that some concern was included for his peace; ”Tis to that, then, that cause,—a cause the most lovely,—he owes this envied pre-eminence?—And yet,—pardon me!—while apparently only a mediator—may not such a charge,—such an intercourse,—so intimate and so interesting a commission,—may it not,—nay, must it not inevitably make him from an agent become a principal?—Will not his heart pay the tribute—’
‘Heaven forbid!’ interrupting him, cried Juliet.
‘Thanks! thanks, again! You do not, then, wish it? You are generous, noble enough not to wish it? And frank, sweet, ingenuous enough to acknowledge that you do not wish it? Ah! tell me but—’
‘Mr Harleigh,’ again interrupting him, cried Juliet, ‘I know not what you are saying!—I fear I have been misunderstood.—You must let me be gone!’—
‘No!’ answered he, passionately; ‘I can live no longer, breathe no longer, in this merciless solicitude of uncertainty and obscurity! You must give me some glimmering of light, some opening to comprehension,—or content yourself to be my captive!—’
‘You terrify me, Mr Harleigh! Let me go!—instantly! instantly!—Would you make me hate—’ She had begun with a precipitance nearly vehement; but stopt abruptly.
‘Hate me?’ cried Harleigh, with a look appalled: ‘Good Heaven!’
‘Hate you?—No,—not you!... I did not say you!—’
‘Who, then? who then, should I make you hate?—Lord Melbury?—’
‘O no, never!—’tis impossible!—Let me be gone!—let me be gone!—’
‘Not till you tell me whom I should make you hate! I cannot part with you in this new ignorance! Clear, at least, this one little point Whom should I make hate you?—’
‘Myself, Sir, myself!’ cried she, trembling and struggling. ‘If you persist in thus punishing my not having fled from you, at once, as I would have fled from an enemy!’
He immediately let go her hand; but, finding that, though her look was instantly appeased, nay grateful, she was hastily retreating, he glided between her and the door, crying, ‘Where,—at least deign to tell me!—Where may I see,—may I speak to you again?’
‘Any where, any where!’—replied she, with quickness; but presently, with a sudden check of vivacity, added, ‘No where, I mean!—no where, Sir, no where!’—
‘Is this possible!’ exclaimed he. ‘Can you,—even in your wishes,—can you be so hard of heart?’—
‘It is you,’ said she reproachfully, ‘who are hard of heart, to detain me thus!—Think but where I am!—where you are!—This house—Miss Joddrel—What may not be the consequence?—Is it Mr Harleigh who would deliver me over to calumny?’
Harleigh now held open the door for her himself, without venturing to reply, as he heard footsteps upon the stairs; but he permitted his lips to touch her arm, for he could not again seize her hand, as she passed him, eagerly, and with her face averted. She fled on to the stairs, and rapidly ascended them. Harleigh durst now follow; but he pursued her with his eyes. He could not, however, catch a glance, could not even view her profile, so sedulously her head was turned another way. Disappointment and mortification were again seizing him; till he considered, that that countenance thus hidden, had she been wholly unfearful of shewing some little emotion, had probably, nay, even purposely, been displayed.
Fleetly gaining her room, and dropping upon a chair, ‘I must fly!—I must fly!’ she exclaimed. ‘Danger, here, attacks me in every quarter,—assails me in every shape! I must fly!—I must fly!’
This project, which had its origin in her terrour of Elinor, was now confirmed by the most profound, however troubled meditation. To difficulties of discussion which she deemed insurmountable with Harleigh; to claims of a confidence which she now considered to be deeply dangerous with Lord Melbury; and to indignities daily, nay, hourly, more insufferable from Mrs Ireton, were joined, at this moment, the horrour of another interview with Lord Denmeath, still more repugnant to her thoughts, and formidable to her fears.
She refused to descend to the evening-summons of Mrs Ireton; determining to avoid all further offences from that lady, to whom she had already announced her intended departure; yet she sighed, she even wept at quitting with the same unexplained abruptness Lord Melbury and Harleigh; and the cruel disappointment, mingled with strange surmizes, of the ingenuous Lord Melbury; the nameless consternation, blended with resentful suspence, of the impassioned Harleigh; presented scenes of distress and confusion to her imagination, that occupied her thoughts the whole night, with varying schemes and incessant regret.
When the glimmering of light shewed her that she must soon be gone, she mounted to a garret, which she knew to be inhabited by a young house-maid, whom she called up; and prevailed upon to go forth, and seek a boy who would carry a parcel to a distant part of the town.
Having thus gotten the street-door open, she guided the boy herself to the inn; where she arrived in time to save her place; and whence she set off for London.
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