“When the will’s at enmity with the task before us, we love to
dally in performance.”
Fitz-Ullin was now on the point of quitting Lodore. Yet he lingered.
There seemed to be something that he wished to say, or do, before he
went; still he did nothing, and said little. At length, finding Julia
one morning alone in the library, he took a seat beside her. She
trembled visibly; yet were her feelings not altogether painful: there
was a strange mixture of hope. He remained for a long time silent,
either mastering some emotion, or considering how to commence. “Julia,”
he at last said, for, in his agitation, he forgot the title; “do not
mistake me! do not suppose that I mean to speak of myself, or of my
own feelings; I am too well aware what yours have been, to be guilty
of conduct so indelicate. Have been, did I say? rather, what I must
suppose they still are, though you have, Julia, so well, so wonderfully
maintained the struggle, so successfully concealed every emotion. But
surely, those sentiments, however tenderly cherished their secret
remembrance may be, and I confess, though such a declaration from me may
seem strange, I confess that, even I, who have had so much cause to mourn
that ever they found a place in your bosom, even I should not like to
see you capable of the levity, of casting them thence in a moment. But,
as I was about to say, surely they need not deprive me of that sisterly
regard, that calm, unimpassioned friendship, which is all I ask; and
which you have even so often promised me should be mine for ever. If I,
too, must resign every warmer feeling, need I be deprived, also, of
this sweet solace, without which the burden of existence is intolerable!
Julia, you look shocked, you look offended. I had not dared to have
entered on such a topic—but—but—your surprising self-command deceived me:
I thought you could have borne it better. And—and—I did suppose, that the
bitterness of my own disappointed hopes might have been some apology;
that—I might have been heard, with pity, at least.”
“Is he mad?” thought Julia. “Does he deem it necessary to apologize to
me, because his lingering love for another will not suffer him to offer
me more than friendship? And does he, can he mean to tell me to my face,
that he has long seen my weak, wretched, mean devotion to himself, yet
cannot return it? And, therefore, he would school me into moderating
my attachment for him—rendering it of a calmer—nay—a less impassioned
nature! Good heavens, is it come to this?”
With these thoughts passing rapidly through her mind, she had risen from
her seat while he was yet speaking. She now stood, for a few moments,
motionless, and covered with burning blushes; then, clasping her hands
and lifting her eyes to heaven, but without suffering them, for an
instant, to meet Fitz-Ullin’s, she turned, and fled the room.
Arrived in her own, she sat down, unable even to think! A summons to
dinner was the first thing that aroused her, (though two full hours had
elapsed). It found her cold, and pale; while her eyes were so disfigured
by the traces of tears, she had been long unconsciously shedding, that
she was obliged to excuse herself from appearing at dinner.
When she was next in company with Fitz-Ullin, which was, of necessity,
that evening, she carefully avoided meeting his eyes, keeping her own
always on the ground. She never addressed him; when he addressed her,
she answered, without looking up, and by monosyllables pronounced
in a voice scarcely audible, and immediately spoke to some one else.
Fitz-Ullin seemed conscious that he had committed some error; for more
than once in the course of the evening, he found an opportunity when none
were near, to entreat her pardon in a low, hurried tone. He received
neither word nor look in reply.