Ellis sighed: 'Alas!' she said, 'my own repugnance to this measure makes me but too easily conceive the objections to which it may be liable! and if you, so singularly liberal, if even you – '
She stopt; but Harleigh, not less encouraged by a phrase thus begun, than if she had proceeded, warmly continued.
'If then, in a case such as I have presumed to suppose, to have withdrawn you from the public would not have been wrong, how can it be faulty, upon the same principles, and with the same intentions, to endeavour, with all my might, to turn you aside from such a project? – I see you are preparing to tell me that I argue upon premises to which you have not concurred. Suffer me, nevertheless, to add a few words, in explanation of what else may seem presumption, or impertinence: I have hinted that this plan might cloud my dearest hopes; imagine not, thence, that my prejudices upon this subject are invincible: no! but I have Relations who have never deserved to forfeit my consideration; – and these – not won, like me, by the previous knowledge of your virtues. – '
Ellis would repeatedly have interrupted him, but he would not be stopped.
'Hear me on,' he continued, 'I beseech you! By my plainness only I can shew my sincerity. For these Relations, then, permit me to plead. It is true, I am independent: my actions are under no control; but these are ties from which we are never emancipated; ties which cling to our nature, and which, though voluntary, are imperious, and cannot be broken or relinquished, without self-reproach; ties formed by the equitable laws of fellow-feeling; which bind us to our family, which unites us with our friends; and which, by our own expectations, teach us what is due to our connexions. Ah, then, if ever brighter prospects may open to my eyes, let me see them sullied, by mists hovering over the approbation of those with whom I am allied!'
'How just,' cried Ellis, trying to force a smile, 'yet how useless is this reasoning! I cannot combat sentiments in which I concur; yet I can change nothing in a plan to which they must have no reference! I am sorry to appear ungrateful, where I am only steady; but I have nothing new to say; and must entreat you to dispense with fruitless repetitions. Already, I fear, I am beyond the hour of my engagement.'
She was now departing.
'You distract me!' cried he, with vehemence, 'you distract me!' He caught her gown, but, upon her stopping, instantly let it go. Pale and affrighted, 'Mr Harleigh,' she cried, 'is it to you I must own a scene that may raise wonder and surmises in the house, and aggravate distresses and embarrassments which, already, I find nearly intolerable?'
Shocked and affected, he shut the door, and would impetuously, yet tenderly, have taken her hand; but, upon her shrinking back, with displeasure and alarm, he more quietly said, 'Pardon! pardon! and before you condemn me inexorably to submit to such rigorous disdain and contempt – '
'Why will you use such words? Contempt? – Good heaven!' she began, with an emotion that almost instantly subsided, and she added, 'Yet of what consequence to you ought to be my sensations, my opinions?' They can avail you nothing! Let me go, – and let me conjure you to be gone!'
'You are then decided against me?' cried he, in a voice scarcely articulate.
'I am,' she answered, without looking at him, but calmly.
He bowed, with an air that relinquished all further attempt to detain her; but which shewed him too much wounded to speak.
Carefully still avoiding his eyes, she was moving off; but, when she touched the lock of the door, he exclaimed, 'Will you not, at least, before you go, allow me to address a few words to you as a friend? simply, – undesignedly, – only as a friend?'
'Ah! Mr Harleigh!' cried Ellis, irresistibly softened, 'as a friend could I, indeed, have trusted you, I might long since, – perhaps, – have confided in your liberality and benevolence: but now, 'tis wholly impossible!'
'No!' exclaimed he, warmly, and touched to the soul; 'nothing is impossible that you wish to effect! Hear me, then, trust and speak to me as a friend; a faithful, a cordial, a disinterested friend! Confide to me your name – your situation – the motives to your concealment – the causes that can induce such mystery of appearance, in one whose mind is so evidently the seat of the clearest purity: – the reasons of such disguise – '
'Disguise, I acknowledge, Sir, you may charge me with; but not deceit! I give no false colouring. I am only not open.'
'That, that is what first struck me as a mark of a distinguished character! That noble superiority to all petty artifices, even for your immediate safety; that undoubting innocence, that framed no precautions against evil constructions; that innate dignity, which supported without a murmur such difficulties, such trials; – '
'Ah, Mr Harleigh! a friend and a flatterer – are they, then, synonimous terms? If, indeed, you would persuade me you feel that they are distinct, you will not make me begin a new and distasteful career – since to begin it I think indispensable; – with the additional chagrin of appearing to be wanting in punctuality. No further opposition, I beg!'
'O yet one word, one fearful word must be uttered – and one fatal – or blest reply must be granted! – The excess of my suspense, upon the most essential of all points, must be terminated! I will wait with inviolable patience the explanation of all others. Tell me, then, to what barbarous cause I must attribute this invincible, this unrelenting reserve? – How I may bear an abrupt answer I know not, but the horrour of uncertainty I experience, and can endure no longer. Is it, then, to the force of circumstances I may impute it? – or … is it…'
'Mr Harleigh,' interrupted Ellis, with strong emotion, 'there is no medium, in a situation such as mine, between unlimited confidence, or unbroken taciturnity: my confidence I cannot give you; it is out of my power – ask me, then, nothing!'
'One word, – one little word, – and I will torment you no longer: is it to pre-engagement – '
Her face was averted, and her hand again was placed upon the lock of the door.
'Speak, I implore you, speak! – Is that heart, which I paint to myself the seat of every virtue … is it already gone? – given, dedicated to another?'
He now trembled himself, and durst not resist her effort to open the door, as she replied, 'I have no heart! – I must have none?'
She uttered this in a tone of gaiety, that would utterly have confounded his dearest expectations, had not a glance, with difficulty caught, shewed him a tear starting into her eye; while a blush of fire, that defied constraint, dyed her cheeks; and kept no pace with the easy freedom from emotion, that her voice and manner seemed to indicate.
Flushed with tumultuous sensations of conflicting hopes and fears, he now tenderly said, 'You are determined then, to go?'
'I am; but you must first leave my room.'
'Is there, then, no further appeal?'