'
She shook her head, sadly and hopelessly, and I
continued, with agitation:
'Your beauty unnerves me. I am disarmed by
your frankness and your distress. If you are free to
act upon conscience you will, I believe, do what you
conceive to be best; if you are not--well, Heaven
help us all! You have nothing to fear from me but
such opposition to this marriage as I can try to
justify on--on other grounds.'
These were not my exact words, but that was the
sense of them, as nearly as my sudden and conflict-
ing emotions permitted me to express it. I rose and
left her without another look at her, met the others
as they re-entered the room and said, as calmly as
I could: 'I have been bidding Miss Margovan good
evening; it is later than I thought.'
John decided to go with me. In the street he
asked if I had observed anything singular in Julia's
manner.
'I thought her ill,' I replied; 'that is why I left.'
Nothing more was said.
The next evening I came late to my lodgings. The
events of the previous evening had made me nervous
and ill; I had tried to cure myself and attain to clear
thinking by walking in the open air, but I was op-
pressed with a horrible presentiment of evil--a pre-
sentiment which I could not formulate. It was a chill,
foggy night; my clothing and hair were damp and I
shook with cold. In my dressing-gown and slippers
before a blazing grate of coals I was even more un-
comfortable.
Pages:
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98