CHAPTER LXXXIX
While time was yet a stranger to regulation, and ere the dial shewed its passage; when it had no computation but by our feelings, our weariness, our occupations, or our passions; the sun which arose splendid upon felicity, must have excited, by its quick parting rays, a surprise nearly incredulous; while that which gave light but to sorrow, may have appeared, at its evening setting, to have revolved the whole year. This period, so long past, seemed now present to Lady Aurora and to Juliet; so uncounted flew the minutes; so unconscious were they that they had more than met, more than embraced, more than reciprocated their joy in acknowledged kindred; that each felt amazed as well as shocked, when a summons from Mrs Howel to Lady Aurora, told them that the day was fast wearing, away.
Lady Aurora reluctantly obeyed the call; and in thanksgiving, pious and delighted, Juliet spent the interval of her absence.
It was not long; she returned precipitately; but colourless, trembling, and altered, though making an effort to smile: but the struggle against her feelings ended in a burst of tears; and, again falling upon the neck of Juliet; 'Oh my sweet sister!' she cried, 'is your persecution never to end?'
Juliet, though quickly alarmed, fondly answered, 'It is over already! While that precious appellation comes from your lips,—sweet title of tenderness and affection!—I feel above every danger!'
Lady Aurora, bitterly weeping, was compelled, then, to acknowledge that she had been hurried away by Mrs Howel, to be told that a foreigner, ill dressed, and just arrived from the Continent, was demanding, in broken English, of every one that he met, some news of a young person called Miss Ellis.
The exaltation of Juliet was instantly at an end; and, in an accent of despair, she uttered, 'Is it so soon, then, over!—my transient felicity!'
Whether this foreigner were her persecutor himself, escaped and disguised; or some emissary employed to claim or to entrap her, was all of doubt by which she was momentarily supported; for she felt as determined to resist an agent, as she thought herself incapable to withstand the principal.