And was it love she felt so soon—so strongly!—It is not possible. Alarmed, grieved, flattered at his altered manner, she turned aside to conceal the violent, the undefinable emotions, to which she had become a prey:—a dream of ecstasy for one moment fluttered in her heart; but the recollection of Lord Avondale recurring, she started with horror from herself—from him; and, abruptly taking leave, retired. “Are you going?” said Glenarvon. “I am ill,” she answered. “Will you suffer me to accompany you?” he said, as he assisted her into her carriage; “or possibly it is not the custom in this country:—you mistrust me—you think it wrong.”—“No,” she answered with embarrassment; and he seated himself by her side. The distance to the castle was short. Lord Glenarvon was more respectful, more reserved, more silent than before he had entered the carriage. On quitting it alone, he pressed her hand to his heart, and bade her feel for the agony she had implanted there. None, perhaps, ever before felt what she did at this instant.... CHAPTER XIV. If any indifferent person approach us, it either is disagreeable, or at least unimportant; but when it is a person we love, it thrills through the heart, and we are unable to speak or to think. Could she have imagined, that Lord Glenarvon felt for her, she had been lost. But that was impossible; and yet his manner;—it was so marked, there could be no doubt. She was inexperienced, we may add, innocent; though no doubt sufficiently prepared to become every thing that was the reverse. Yet in a moment she felt her own danger, and resolved to guard against it. How then can so many affirm, when they know that they are loved, that it is a mere harmless friendship! how can they, in palliation of their errors, bring forward the perpetually repeated excuse, that they were beguiled! The heart that is chaste and pure will shrink the soonest from the very feeling that would pollute it:—in vain it would attempt to deceive itself: the very moment we love, or are loved, something within us points out the danger:—even when we fly from him, to whom we could attach ourselves, we feel a certain embarrassment—an emotion, which is not to be mistaken; and, in a lover’s looks, are there not a thousand assurances and confessions which no denial of words can affect to disguise? Lord Glenarvon had denied to Calantha the possibility of his ever again feeling attachment. This had not deceived her; but she was herself too deeply and suddenly struck to the heart to venture to hope for a return. Besides, she did not think of this as possible:—he seemed to her so far above her—so far above everything. She considered him as entirely different from all others; and, if not superior, at least dissimilar and consequently not to be judged of by the same criterion.