An involuntary smile here unbent the knitting brow of Juliet, who could not feel offended, or sorry, that Sir Jaspar had revealed the history of her birth.
She desired, nevertheless, to pass, refusing every species of discussion.
'If you will not answer, will not speak,' cried Harleigh, still obstructing her way, 'fear not, at least, to hear! Are you not at liberty? Is not your persecutor gone?--Can he ever return?'
'I have myself seen him embark! I rode after his chaise, I pursued it to the sea-coast, I saw him under sail.'
Juliet, with uplifted eyes, clasped her hands, from an emotion of ungovernable joy; which a thousand blushes betrayed her vain struggles to suppress.
Harleigh observed not this unmoved: 'Ah, Madam!' he cried, 'since, thus critically, you have escaped;--since, thus happily, you are released;--since no church ritual has ever sanctioned the sacrilegious violence--'
'Spare all ineffectual controversy!' cried Juliet, assuming an air and tone of composure, with which her quick heaving bosom was ill in harmony; 'I can neither talk nor listen upon this subject. You know, now, my story: dread and atrocious as is my connection, my faith to it must be unbroken, till I have seen the Bishop! and till the iniquity of my chains may be proved, and my restoration to my violated freedom may be legalized. Do not look so shocked; so angry, must I say?--Remember, that a point of conscience can be settled only internally! I will speak, therefore, but one word more; and I must hear no reply: little as I feel to belong to the person in question, I cannot consider myself to be my own! 'Tis a tie which, whether or not it binds me to him, excludes me, while thus circumstanced, from all others!--This, Sir, is my last word!--Adieu!'
Harleigh, though looking nearly petrified, still stood before her. 'You fly us, then,' he cried, resentfully, though mournfully, 'both alike? You put us upon a par?--'
'No!' answered Juliet, hastily, 'him I fly because I hate;--You--'
The deep scarlet which mounted into her whole face finished the sentence; in defiance of a sudden and abrupt breaking off, that meant and hoped to snatch the unguarded phrase from comprehension.
But Harleigh felt its fullest contrast; his hopes, his wishes, his whole soul completed it by You, because I love!--not that he could persuade himself that Juliet would have used those words; he knew the contrary; knew that she would sooner thus situated expire; but such, he felt, was the impulse of her thoughts; such the consciousness that broke off her speech.