'I will take your commands in every shape in which they can be framed,' cried Harleigh, gaily; 'but you must not refuse to grant me, at the same time, directions for their execution.'
The interest with which Lord Melbury listened to what passed, was now mingled with undisguised impatience: but Juliet could not endure to satisfy him; could not support letting him know, that she retained money of Harleigh's in her hands; nor yet bear to suffer Harleigh, now the address had been seen, to leave it still in her possession: hesitating, abashed, she turned from one to the other, with looks at Lord Melbury that seemed appealing for forbearance; and to Harleigh with down-cast eyes, that had not force to encounter his, but that were expressive of distress, timidity, and fear of misconstruction.
This pause, while it astonished and perplexed Lord Melbury, gave rise, in Harleigh, to the most flattering emotions. Her disturbance was, indeed, visible, and cruelly painful to him; but, since their meeting in the church-yard, the severity of her reserve had seemed shaken, beyond her power, evident as were her struggles, to call back its original firmness. The more exquisitely he felt himself bewitched by this observation, the more fondly he desired to spare her delicacy, by concealing, though not repressing his hopes; but his eyes, less under his controul than his words, air, or address, spoke a language not to be doubted of tenderness, and sparkled with lustrous happiness, Juliet felt their beams too powerfully to mistake, or even to sustain them. Her head dropt, her eye-lids nearly closed; blushing shame tingled in her cheeks, and apprehension and perturbation trembled in every limb.
Perceiving, and adoring, her inability to find utterance, Harleigh, with subdued rapture, yet in a tone that spoke of his feelings to be, at length, in harmony with all his wishes, was gently beginning an entreaty that she would adjourn this little dispute to another day, when the words, 'Well! if here i'n't the very person we were talking off!' striking his ears, he looked round, and saw Miss Bydel, accompanied by Mr Giles Arbe; whose approach had been unheeded by them all, from the deep interest which had concentrated their attention to themselves.
'Why, Mrs Ellis,' she continued, 'why what are you doing here? I should like to know that. I've just had a smart battle about you with my good friend, Mr Giles. He will needs have it, that you paid all your debts from a hoard that you had by you, of your own; though I have told him I dare say an hundred times, at the least, I must needs be a better judge, having been paid myself, for my own share, by that cross-grained Baronet, who's been such a good friend to you.'
The sensations of Juliet underwent now another change, though shame was still predominant; her fears of exciting the expectations she sought to annul in Harleigh, were superseded by a terrour yet more momentous, of giving ground for suspicion, not alone to himself, but to Lord Melbury, that, while fashioning a thousand difficulties, to accepting the assistance that was generously and delicately offered by themselves, she had suffered a third person, that person, also, a gentleman, to supply her pecuniary necessities. She breathed hard, and looked disordered, but could suggest nothing to say; while Harleigh and Lord Melbury stood as if transfixed by disturbed astonishment.
'Well! I protest,' resumed Miss Bydel, 'if here i'n't another of the people that we were talking of, Mr Giles! for I declare it's Mr Harleigh, that I was telling you, you know, my good friend, was the person that made poor Miss Joddrel make away with her herself, because of his skimper-scampering after Mrs Ellis, when she had that swoon! which, to be sure, had but an out of the way look; for the music would have taken care of her. Don't you think so yourself, my dear?'
The most painful confusion again took possession of Juliet; who would silently have walked away, had not Miss Bydel caught hold of her arm, saying, 'Don't be in a hurry, my dear, for you shan't be chid; for I'll speak for you myself to Mrs Ireton.'
'I am mighty glad to hear that Sir Jaspar is your friend, my pretty lady,' said the smiling Mr Giles; 'and I am mighty glad, too, that you have persuaded him to help to pay your debts. He's a very good sort of man, where he takes; and very witty and clever. Though he is crabbed, too; rather crabbed and waspish, when he i'n't pleased. He always scolds all the men: and, indeed, the maids, too, when they a'n't pretty, poor things! And they can't help that: else, I dare say, they would. Yet, I am afraid, I don't like them quite so well myself, neither, in my heart, when they are ugly; which is but hard upon them; so I always do them double the good, to punish myself. But I'm prodigiously sorry you should have taken to that turn of running in debt, my dear, for it's the only thing I know to your disadvantage; for which reason I have never named it to a single soul; only it just dropt out, before I was aware, to Miss Bydel; which I am sorry enough for; for I am afraid it will be but hard to her, poor lady, to keep it to herself.'
'What do you mean by that Mr Giles?' cried Miss Bydel, angrily. 'Do you want to insinuate that I don't know how to keep a secret? I should be glad to know what right you have to fleer at a person about that, when you blab out every thing in such a manner yourself! and before these two gentlemen, too; who don't lose a word of what passes, I can tell you!'