Consternation at sight of her altered countenance, and affright at the impetuosity of her questions, produced a hesitation in the answer of Juliet, that, to the agitated Elinor, seemed the effect of surprised guilt. Her pallid cheeks then burnt with the mixed feelings of triumph and indignation; yet her voice sought to disguise her wounded feelings, and in subdued, though broken accents, ''Tis well!' she cried, 'You no longer, at least, seek to deceive me, and I thank you!' Deaf to explanation or representation, she then hurried her weak frame from the chaise, aided by her foreign lackey; and, directing Juliet to follow, crossed the road to a rising ground upon the Downs; seated herself; sent off her assistant, and made Juliet take a place by her side; while Flora returned, crying and alone, to the farm. 'Now, then,' she said, 'that you try no more to delude, to cajole, to blind me, tell me now, and in two words,--where is Harleigh?' 'Believe me, Madam,--' Juliet was tremblingly beginning, when Elinor, casting off the little she had assumed of self-command, passionately, cried, 'Must I again be played upon by freezing caution and duplicity? Must I die without end the lingering death of cold inaction and uncertainty? breathe for ever without living? Where, I demand, is Harleigh? Where have you concealed him? Why will Harleigh, the noble Harleigh, degrade himself by any concealment? Why stoop to the subtilty of circumspection, to spare himself the appearance of destroying one whose head, heart, and vitals, all feel the reality of the destruction he inflicts? And yet not he! No, no! 'tis my own ruthless star! He loves me not! he is not responsible for my misery, though he is master of my fate! Where is he? where is he? You,--who are the tyrant of his! tell me, and at once!' 'I solemnly protest to you, Madam, with the singleness of the most scrupulous truth,' cried Juliet, recovering her presence of mind, 'I am entirely ignorant of his abode, his occupations, and his intentions.' Ah why, she secretly added, am I not equally unacquainted with his feelings and his wishes! Unable to discredit the candour with which this was pronounced, and filled with wonder, yet involuntarily consoled, the features of Elinor lost their rigidity, and her eyes their fierceness; and, in milder accents, she replied, 'Strange! how strange! Where, then, can he be?--with whom?--how employed?--Does he fly the whole world as well as Elinor? Has no one his society?--no one his confidence?--his society, which, by contrast, makes all existence without it disgusting!--his confidence, which, to obtain, I would yet live, though doomed daily to the rack! O Harleigh! love like mine, who has felt?--love like mine, who but you, O matchless Harleigh! ever inspired!'