"Indeed!" said the young lady, with the warm blood now rushing quick into her glowing cheek--"indeed! The truth is," she added, a moment after, "that in passing by the place where you were lying ill, I heard of the accident that had occurred, and in going near your house, in one of my walks round Yelverley, I thought it best to inform your servants that such was the case, suspecting that they might not know it, as, indeed, they did not."
"And most grateful am I, dear Miss Carr," replied Morley, "for your taking the trouble of letting them know. However much interest you might create in me on our first meeting, I could hardly hope that I had excited any such kind feelings in you, when my rash folly, in leaping my horse over the park palings, might have killed you, and certainly did alarm you very much."
"Your kindness after it was done," replied Juliet Carr, in a calm tone, "made ample compensation; but," she added, in a lower voice, and with her eyes cast down upon the ground, "that was not the first time that we ever met."
"Indeed!" exclaimed Morley, in his turn surprised, and under the first impulse speaking out the plain truth, without any of the softenings of conventional life--"I did not think it possible, that if I had once seen you on the whole earth before, even for a single moment, I could ever have forgotten you."
His fair companion answered not for a moment, and he added "Where--where was it, Miss Carr? I do not recollect any one even of your name in our neighbourhood. Where was it?"
"In this very house--in this very room," replied Juliet Carr. "We have played together many a time upon the carpet, and you used to tease me sadly," she added, with a playful look, "when you were eight years old, and I was seven."
"God give me the opportunity of teasing you again!" exclaimed Morley, with a bright laugh--her words illuminating, in a moment, the whole dark void of the past, like a flash of lightning in a murky night; "and is it possible that you were my little July, my little summer-month, as I used to call you? It is the only name by which I ever knew you; for, indeed, dear Juliet, I was not aware that your name was Carr. Do you recollect"--he added--but ere he could conclude his sentence, the memory of the light, boyish feelings of the past, became mingled so strangely with the intense manly feelings of the present, as to make him almost regret he had begun the question, and caused his voice to tremble as he went on, feeling that he must conclude--"Do you recollect how you promised to be my wife?"
Juliet Carr turned deadly pale, and Morley could scarcely hear her voice, as she replied, "Oh yes, oh yes! I remember something of it."
His heart sunk, for he was inexperienced in matters of love, and thought that, in that paleness, and that low tone, he perceived a thousand things which they did not imply in the least. Such feelings as his, however, are seldom without hope, and he soon rallied again; but he resolved, ere he said more upon subjects of so deep an interest, to watch and see, to mark every word and every tone, to gather by some means, in short, the certainty that there was no such bar as another attachment between her heart and his. So far he resolved wisely; but he went on to determine that he would guard his own affections carefully, that he would take care not to fall in love with Juliet Carr till he was certain there was no obstacle to her loving him again. In this he resolved very foolishly, as every man does who takes resolutions in regard to things that are past. Morley Ernstein had no longer any power not to love Juliet Carr. He might guard the posterns of the citadel as he would,--the garrison had already surrendered, and the enemy had entered by the great gates.
Morley might have been somewhat puzzled to renew the conversation, after the momentary pause for thought which succeeded the last word spoken. It is a great art in that sort of communion which he was holding with Juliet Carr, never to let any subject drop entirely without leaving some sort of link in the chain open to hook it on to another. Morley was relieved from his difficulty, however, though not in the manner which he might have liked the best. The lady who had been talking with his fair companion when he first saw her that evening, returned, and spoke with her again for a few minutes. What she said Morley did not hear, for he went on thinking upon the subject which, for the time, was predominant in his own mind. After a moment or two, however, he saw Miss Carr's eyes directed towards the man with whom the other lady had been speaking in the doorway, and at the same time a sort of shudder seemed to come over her, while she said, "Can you really admire such conduct?"