She now turned away, to hide a starting tear; but, soon resuming her usually lively manner, said, 'I have traced you, at last, together; and by means of our caustick, bilious fellow-traveller, Riley; whom I encountered by accident; and who runs, snarling, yet curious, after his fellow-creatures, working at making himself enemies, as if enmity were a pleasing, or lucrative profession! From him I learnt, that he had just seen you,--and together!--near Salisbury. I discovered you, Ellis, two days ago; but Harleigh, though I have been roving some time in your vicinity, only this moment.' A sudden shriek now broke from her, and Juliet, affrighted and looking around, perceived Harleigh pacing hastily away. The shriek reached him, and he stopt. 'Fly, fly, to him,' she cried, 'Ellis; assure him, I have no present personal project; none! I solemnly promise, none! But I have an opinion to gather from him, of which my ignorance burns, devours me, and will not let me rest, alive nor dead!' Juliet, distressed, irresolute, ventured not to move. ''Tis his duty,' continued Elinor, 'after his solemn declaration, to initiate me into his motives for believing in a future state. I have been distracting my burthened senses over theological works; but my head is in no condition to comprehend them. They treat, also, of belief in a future state, as of a thing not to be proved, but to be taken for granted. Let him penetrate me with his own notions; or frankly acknowledge their insufficiency. But let him mark that they are indeed his own! Let them be neither fanatical, illusory, nor traditional.' Juliet was compelled to obey; but while she was repeating her message, Elinor descended the hill, and they all met at its foot. 'Harleigh,' she cried, 'fear me not! Do not imagine I shall again go over the same ground;--at least, not with the monotonous stupidity of again going over it in the same manner. Yet believe not my resolution to be shaken! But I have some doubts, relative to your own principles and opinions, of which I demand a solution.' She then seated herself upon the turf, and made Harleigh seat himself before her, while Juliet remained by her side. 'Can you feign, Harleigh? Can you endure to act a part, in defiance of your nobler nature, merely to prolong my detested life? Do you join in the popular cry against suicide, merely to arrest my impatient hand? If not, initiate me, I beseech, in the series of pretended reasoning, by which honour, honesty, and understanding such as yours, have been duped into bigotry? How is it, explain! that you can have been worked upon to believe in an existence after death? Ah, Harleigh! could you, indeed, give so sublime a resting-place to my labouring ideas!--I would consent to enter the ecclesiastical court myself, to sing the recantation of what you deem my errours. And then, Albert, I might learn,--with all my wretchedness!--to bear to live,--for then, I might seek and foster some hope in dying!'