'Did you wish, then,' said Harleigh, in a tone the most melancholy, 'could you wish that I should still languish in harrowing suspense? or burst with ignorance?'
'Oh no!' cried she, raising her eyes, which glistened with tears, 'no! If the mystery that so long has hung about me, by occupying your ...' She sought a word, and then continued: 'your imagination ... impedes the oblivion that ought to bury me and my misfortunes from further thought,—then, indeed, I ought to be thankful to Sir Jaspar,—and I am thankful that he has let you know, ... that he has informed you....'
She could not finish the sentence.
'Yes!' cried Harleigh with energy, 'I have heard the dreadful history of your wrongs! of the violences by which you have suffered, of the inhuman attempts upon your liberty, your safety, your honour!—But since you have thus happily—'
'Mr Harleigh,' cried Juliet, struggling to recover her presence of mind, 'I need no longer, I trust, now, beg your absence! All I can have to say you must, now, understand ... anticipate ... acknowledge ... since you are aware....'
'Ah!' cried Harleigh, in a tone not quite free from reproach;—'had you but, from the beginning, condescended to inform me of your situation! a situation so impossible to divine! so replete with horrour, with injury, with unheard of suffering,—had you, from the first, instead of avoiding, flying me, deigned to treat me with some trust—'
'Mr Harleigh,' said Juliet, with eagerness, 'whatever may be your surprize that such should be my situation, ... my fate, ... you can, at least, require, now, no explanation why I have fled you!'
The word why, vibrated instantly to the heart of Harleigh, where it condolingly said: It was duty, then, not averseness, not indifference, that urged that flight! she had not fled, had she not deemed herself engaged!—Juliet, who had hastily uttered the why in the solicitude of self-vindication, shewed, by a change of complexion, the moment that it had passed her lips, that she felt the possible inference of which it was susceptible, and dropt her eyes; fearful to risk discovering the consciousness that they might indicate.
Harleigh, however, now brightened, glowed with revived sensations: 'Ah! be not,' he cried, 'be not the victim of your scruples! let not your too delicate fears of doing wrong by others, urge you to inflict wrong, irreparable wrong, upon yourself! Your real dangers are past; none now remain but from a fancied,—pardon, pardon me!—a fancied refinement, unfounded in reason, or in right! Suffer, therefore—'
'Hold, Sir, hold!—we must not even talk upon this subject:—nor, at this moment, upon any other!—'