“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. CHAPTER XLIV. … “How thy cheek Doth vary! But now, with feverish glow It burnt, kindling as thou spakest, and now White, and cold, it glistens in thy damp tears, Like the pale lily in the morning dew. Oh! shake not thus my soul, Comala!” “Tomorrow, at sunrise! so soon, so soon?” The next day Fitz-Ullin found it impossible to be a moment alone with Julia. She fled all such occasions, with a species of terror, which astonished him. In the evening he met her suddenly in the shrubbery.