“It is full time, I should think, for the dancing to commence. You had better take Julia out,” he added, lowering his voice, and addressing our hero, “you know how to prevail in that quarter, I dare say!”
Edmund, (whom we must in future call Fitz-Ullin,) instead of colouring became paler than before, and, without speaking, offered his arm to Julia. She took it with a sensation of panic. The strangeness of his present manner, agreed but too well with that letter, but for which, and this manner, how happy had the wonderful discoveries of this evening made her. How happy, even for dear Edmund’s sake, had it been possible not to mingle self with the thought.
As she took his offered arm, she was certain she felt him shudder; but as her own trembled at the time, she afterwards thought she might have been mistaken.
They walked up the room in silence. Confused, and pained, Julia found that she could not congratulate her companion on his good fortune with the cordial frankness which had else been natural, nor ask half the obvious questions, respecting circumstances so hastily explained, and which had brought about, thus suddenly, a state of things, that altogether appeared to her bewildered apprehension, more like a dream, than a reality. Oh how delightedly would she have dwelt, she thought, a short time since on such a subject, so full of wonder, and, which ought to be, so full of joy.
But something extraordinary, something more than sorrow in the manner of this incomprehensible being, whom she must now too, call by the new, and not yet endeared name of Fitz-Ullin, seemed to have raised up an insuperable barrier between them. Even the expression of his countenance, (though still she beheld the features of Edmund) was, in all that regarded mind, or indicated feeling, utterly changed.
His presence inspired her with an almost superstitious awe! He was so like, and yet so unlike himself, that she traced the resemblance, with feelings not far removed from those with which the identity of a visitant from the grave might be recognised. And strange it is, that such identity should appal, while it portrays what, in life, would have claimed our fondest embrace.
He was indeed evidently miserable; and that idea, awakened every habitual feeling of tenderness in Julia’s breast. The thought of, why he was thus unhappy, came next in the train of reflections, and, as it presented itself in the unwelcome form of his love for another, she unconsciously suffered a sigh to be audible.
Fitz-Ullin looked suddenly round; her eyes were bent downwards; and now, for the first time since he entered the room, he permitted his to dwell, for a few seconds, on that perfect loveliness which he had never contemplated, even in imagination, without a bewildering sense of delight, which rendered the lapse of time imperceptible. Julia felt his silent gaze, though she saw it not, and a thrill of pleasure accompanied the consciousness; for which weakness, however, she instantly condemned herself.
Thus occupied, our hero and heroine, arrived at the head of the dancing room, forgetful of all present, while the eyes, if not of all, of many, were, as we have seen, fixed on them. But where is that radiant joy; where that sunshine of the heart brightening every feature, which might naturally be expected, at this moment, to appear on the countenance of the once humble Edmund, feeling himself, as he must now do, in every circumstance the equal of that Julia, whom he had so long thought it presumption, nay even ingratitude to love; yet loved to an excess so uncontroulable, that no power was left of concealing his passion, and to fly its object, had become his only resource.