Upon quitting the drawing-room, to mount to her chamber, Juliet caught a glance of Ireton, ascending the staircase to the second story.

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 co............