And now I had some cause for the alarm that seized me, for I was more than once boldly accosted; and, ere I reached the shop where I intended to offer my ring, I was so thoroughly discomposed, that I entered without observing an equipage of the De Burghs at the door.
The shop was full of gay company; but one figure alone fixed my attention. It was that of my heartless friend. I recoiled like one who treads upon a serpent. My first impulse was to fly; but ere I had time to retreat, a deadly sickness arrested my steps; and I stood motionless and crouching towards the earth, as if struck by the power of the basilisk. A person belonging to the shop, who came to enquire my commands, seeing me, I suppose, ready to sink, offered me a chair; upon which I unconsciously dropped, still unable to withdraw my gaze from my apostate friend. Presently I almost started from my seat as her eye met mine. Her deepening colour alone told that she recognized me; for she instantly turned away.
Indignation now began to displace the stupor which had seized me. 'Shall I let this unfeeling creature see,' thought I, 'that she has power to move me thus? Or shall I tamely slink away, as if it were I who should dread the glance of reproach?--as if it were I who had stabbed the heart which trusted me?' My breast swelling with pain, pride, and resentment, I arose; and walking across the shop with steps as stately as if I had been about to purchase all the splendours it contained, I began to transact the business which brought me thither. My attention, however, was so much pre-occupied, that I was scarcely sensible of surprise when the jeweller named five-and-twenty pounds as the price of my ring; a sum less than one third of what I had expected.
I now perceived that Miss Arnold accompanied Lady Maria de Burgh. They talked familiarly together, and I was probably their subject; for Lady Maria stared full upon me, though her companion did not venture another glance towards the spot where I stood. Not satisfied with her arrogant scrutiny, Lady Maria, as if curious to know whether I were the buyer or the seller, made some pretence for approaching close to me, though without any sign of recognition. I had a hundred times abjured my enmity to Lady Maria. I had wept over it as ungrateful, unchristian. In cool-blooded solitude I had vowed a hundred times, that, having been forgiven a debt of ten thousand talents, I would never more wrangle for trifles with my fellow-servants. But when I was fretted with the insults of strangers, and sore with the unkindness of my early friend, when perhaps my pride was wounded by the circumstances in which she was about to detect me, her Ladyship's little impertinence, attacking me on the weak side, stirred at once the gall of my temper. Suspending a bargain which, indeed, I did not wish her to witness, 'Pray,' said I to the shopman, 'attend in the first place to that lady's business; if indeed she has any except to pry into mine.'