“Suspicions of Mr. Russell!” cried Julia, with a look of high indignation--“Suspicions of your noble-minded friend!--What wickedness, or what weakness!” “Weakness!--miserable weakness!--the sudden effect of jealousy; and could you know, Lady Julia, by what means, by what arts, my mind was worked up to this insanity!” “I cannot listen to this now, Mr. Vivian,” interrupted Lady Julia: “my thoughts cannot fix upon such things--I cannot go back to the past--what is done cannot be undone--what has been said cannot be unsaid.--You cannot recall your words--they were heard--they were understood. I beg you to leave me, sir, that I may have leisure to _think_--if possible, to consider what yet remains for me to do. I have no friend--none, none willing or capable of advising me! I begged of you to leave me, sir.” Vivian could not, at this moment, decide whether he ought or ought not to tell Lady Julia that her secret was known, or at least suspected, by many individuals of the family. “There’s a servant on the terrace who seems to be looking for us,” said Vivian; “I had something of consequence to say--but this man--” “My lady, Miss Bateman desired me to let you know, my lady, that there is the Lady Playdels, and the colonel, and Sir James, in the drawing-room, just come;--and she begs, my lady, you will be pleased to come to them; for Miss Bateman’s waiting for you, my lady, to repeat the verses, she bid me say, my lady.” “Go to them, Mr. Vivian; I cannot go.” “My lady,” persisted the footman, “my lord himself begged you to come; and he and all the gentlemen have been looking for you every where.” “Return to my father, then, and say that I am coming immediately.” “Forced into company!” thought Lady Julia, as she walked slowly towards the house; “compelled to appear calm and gay, when my heart is--what a life of dissimulation! How unworthy of me, formed, as I was once pronounced to be, for every thing that is good and great!--But I am no longer mistress of myself--no soul left but for one object. Why did I not better guard my heart?--No!--rather, why can I not follow its dictates, and at once avow and justify its choice?” Vivian interrupted Lady Julia’s reverie by pointing out to her, as they passed along the terrace, a group of heads, in one of the back windows of the castle, that seemed to be watching them very earnestly. Miss Strictland’s face was foremost; half her body was out of the window; and as she drew back, they heard her say--“It is not he!--It is not he!”--As they passed another front of the castle, another party seemed to be upon the watch at a staircase window;--the lawyer, the captain, the clergyman’s heads appeared for a moment, and vanished. “They seem all to be upon the watch for us,” said Vivian. “Meanness!” cried Lady Julia. “To watch or to be watched, I know not which is most degrading; but I cannot think they are watching us.”