But Harleigh felt its fullest contrast; his hopes, his wishes, his whole soul completed it by You, because I love!--not that he could persuade himself that Juliet would have used those words; he knew the contrary; knew that she would sooner thus situated expire; but such, he felt, was the impulse of her thoughts; such the consciousness that broke off her speech. He durst not venture at any acknowledgement; but, once appeased in his doubts, and satisfied in his feelings, he respected her opinions, and, yielding to her increased, yet speechless eagerness to be gone, he silently, but with eyes of expressive tenderness, ceased to obstruct her passage. Utterly confounded herself, at the half-pronounced thought, thus inadvertently surprised from her, and thus palpably seized and interpreted, she strove to devize some term that might obviate dangerous consequences; but she felt her cheeks so hot, so cold, and again so hot, that she durst not trust her face to his observation; and, accepting the opening which he made for her, she was returning to her cottage, tortured,--and yet soothed,--by indescribable emotions; when an energetic cry of 'Ellis!--Harleigh!--Ellis!' made her raise her eyes to the adjacent hill, and perceive Elinor. CHAPTER LXXXV With arms extended, and a commanding air, Elinor, having made signs to the dismayed Harleigh not to move, awaited, where she stood, the terrified, but obedient Juliet. 'Avoid me not!' she cried, 'Ellis! why should you avoid me? I have given you back your plighted word; and the pride of Harleigh has saved him from all bonds. Why, then, should you fly?' Juliet attempted not to make any answer. 'The conference, the last conference,' continued Elinor, 'which so ardently I have demanded, is still unaccorded. Repeatedly I could have surprized it, singly, from Harleigh; but--' She stopt, coloured, looked indignant, yet ashamed, and then haughtily went on: 'Imagine not my courage tarnished by cowardly apprehensions of misinterpretation,--suspicion,--censoriousness;... no! let the world sneer at its pleasure! Its spleen will never keep pace with my contempt. But Harleigh!--I brave not the censure of Harleigh! even though prepared, and resolved, to quit him for evermore! And, with ideas punctilious such as his of feminine delicacy, he might blame, perhaps,--should I seek him alone--' She blushed more deeply, and, with extreme agitation, added, 'Harleigh, when we shall meet no more, will always honourably say, Her passion for me might be tinctured with madness, but its purity was without alloy!'