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FALKLAND
By Edward Bulwer-Lytton
BOOK III.
EXTRACTS FROM THE JOURNAL OF LADY EMILY MANDEVILLE.
Friday.—Julia is here, and so kind! She has not mentioned his name, but she sighed so deeply when she saw my pale and sunken countenance, that I threw myself into her arms and cried like a child. We had no need of other explanation: those tears spoke at once my confession and my repentance. No letter from him for several days! Surely he is not ill! how miserable that thought makes me!
Saturday.—A note has just been brought me from him. He is come back-here! Good heavens! how very imprudent! I am so agitated that I can write no more.
Sunday.—I have seen him! Let me repeat that sentence—I have seen him. Oh that moment! did it not atone for all that I have suffered? I dare not write everything he said, but he wished me to fly with him—him—what happiness, yet what guilt, in the very thought! Oh! this foolish heart —would that it might break! I feel too well the sophistry of his arguments, and yet I cannot resist them. He seems to have thrown a spell over me, which precludes even the effort to escape.
Monday.—Mr. Mandeville has asked several people in the country to dine here to-morrow, and there is to be a ball in the evening. Falkland is of course invited. We shall meet then, and how? I have been so little accustomed to disguise my feelings, that I quite tremble to meet him with so many witnesses around. Mr. Mandeville has been so harsh to me to-day; if Falkland ever looked at me so, or ever said one such word, my heart would indeed break. What is it Alfieri says about the two demons to whom he is for ever a prey? "La mente e il cor in perpetua lite." Alas! at times I start from my reveries with such a keen sense of agony and shame! How, how am I fallen!
Tuesday.—He is to come here to-day and I shall see him!