Bereft of prudence, in the suddenness of her joy; forgetting self-command, and casting off all guard, all reserve, she rapturously held out to him her willing hands, exclaiming, 'Oh, Mr Harleigh! – are you, then, my destined protector? – my guardian angel?'

Speechless from transported surprize, Harleigh pressed to his lips and to his heart each unresisting hand; while Juliet, whose eyes beamed lustrous with buoyant felicity, was unconscious of the happiness that she bestowed, from the absorption of the delight that she experienced.

'Precious, for ever precious moment!' cried Harleigh, when the power of utterance returned; 'Here, on this spot, where first the tortures of the most deadly suspense give way to the most exquisite hopes, – '

The countenance of Juliet now again underwent a change the most sudden; its brilliancy was overclouded; its smiles vanished; its joy died away; not, indeed, to return to its look of horrour and affright, but to convey an expression of the deepest shame and regret; and, with cheeks tingling with burning blushes, she strove to regain her hands; to recover her composure; and to account to him, by relating what had been her dread, and her mistake, for her flattering reception.

But she strove in vain: her efforts to disengage herself had no more that frozen severity which Harleigh had not dared resist; and though her earnestness and distress shewed their sincerity, her varying blushes, her inability to find words, and her uncontroulable emotion, demonstrated, to his quick perception, that to govern her own conflicting feelings, at this critical moment, was as difficult as to resume over his accustomed dominion.

'Here on this spot,' he continued, 'this blessed, sacred, hallowed spot! clear, and eternally dismiss, every torturing doubt by which I have so long been martyrized! Here let all baneful mystery, all heart-wounding distrust, be for ever exiled; and here – '

A faint, but earnest, 'Oh no! no! no!' now quivered from the lips of Juliet; but Harleigh would not be silenced.

'And here, where you have condescended to call me your protector, – your destined protector! – a title which gives me claims that never while I live shall be relinquished! – claims which not even yourself, now, can have power to recall – '

'Hear me! hear me! – ' interrupted, but vainly, the pleading Juliet; Harleigh, uncontrouled, went on.

'Initiate me, without delay, in the duties of my office. Against whom, and against what may I be your protector? You have called me, too, your guardian-angel; Oh suffer me to call you mine! Consent to that sweet reciprocation, which blends felicity with every care of life! which animates our virtues by our happiness! which secures the performance of every duty, by making every duty an enjoyment!'

A frequent 'Alas! alas!' was all that Juliet could gain time to utter, from the rapid energy with which Harleigh overpowered all attempt at remonstrance.

'Why, why,' he then cried, with redoubled vivacity; 'Why not exile now, and repudiate for ever, that terrible rigour of reserve that has so long been at war with your humanity? – Listen to your softer self! It will plead, it will surely plead for gentler measures!'

'Oh no, no, no!' reiterated the agitated Juliet, with a vehemence that would have startled, if not discouraged him, had not another incautious 'Alas! alas!' stole its way into the midst of her tremulous negatives; and revealed that her heart, her wishes, her feelings, bore no part in the refusals which her tongue pronounced.

This was not a circumstance to escape Harleigh, who, indescribably touched, fervently exclaimed, 'And what, now, shall sunder us? Pardon my presumption if I say us! What is the power, – the earthly power, – while yet I live, and breathe, and feel, that can now compel me to give up the rights with which, from this decisive moment, I hold myself invested? No! our destinies are indissolubly united! – All procrastination, – all concealment must be over! They would now be literally distracting. Why, then, that start? – Why that look? – Can you regret having shewn a little feeling? – a trait of sensibility? – O put a period to this unequalled, unexampled mystery! I am yours! faithfully, honourably yours! Yours to the end of my mortal existence; yours, by my most sacred hopes, far, far longer! – You weep? – not from grief, I trust, – I hope, – not from grief flow those touching tears? Open to me your situation, – your heart! Here, on this sacred, and henceforth happiest spot, where first you have accorded me a ray of hope, let our mutual vows be plighted to all eternity!'

Juliet, whose whole soul seemed dissolved in poignant yet tender distress, cast up to heaven, as if imploring for aid, her irresistibly streaming eyes; when, caught by some shadowy motion to turn them towards the church, she fancied that she beheld again the female, whose appearance and vanishing had been forgotten from the excess of her own emotions.

Startled, she looked more earnestly, and then clearly perceived, though half hidden behind a monument, a form in white; whose dress appeared to be made in the shape, and of the materials, used for our mortal covering, a shroud. A veil of the same stuff fell over the face of the figure, of which the hands hung down strait at each lank side.

Struck with awe and consternation, Juliet involuntarily ceased her struggles for freedom; and Harleigh, who saw her strangely moved, pursuing the direction of her eyes, discerned the object by which they had been caught; who now, slowly raising her right hand, waved to them to follow; while, with her left, she pointed to the church, and, uttering a wild shriek, flitted out of sight.

Could it be Elinor? Each felt at the same instant the same terrible apprehension. Harleigh sprang after her; Juliet, almost petrified with affright, was immovable.

The fugitive entered the church, and darted towards the altar; where she threw her left hand over a tablet of white stone, cut in the shape of a coffin, with the action of embracing it; yet in a position to leave evident the following inscription:

'This Stone

Is destined by herself to be the last kind covering

of all that remains of

ELINOR JODDREL:

Who, sick of Life, of Love, and of Despair,

Dies to moulder, and be forgotten.'

Casting off her veil when she perceived Harleigh, 'Here! Harleigh, here!' she cried, in a tone authoritative, though tremulous, ''tis here you must reciprocate your vows! Here is the spot! Here stands the altar for the happy; – here, the tomb for the hopeless!'

Suspicious of some sinister purpose, Harleigh was at her side with the swiftness of lightening; but not till her fingers were upon the trigger of a pistol, which she had pointed to her temple; though in time, by attaining her arm, and forcibly giving it a new direction, to make her fire the deadly weapon in the air.

Her own design, nevertheless, seconded by the loud din of a pistol, so close to her ear, and let off by her own hand, operated upon her deranged imagination with a belief that her purpose was fulfilled; and she sunk upon the ground, uttering, with a deep groan, 'Oh Harleigh! bless the dying Elinor, – and be happy! – '

Harleigh, terrified and shocked, though thankfully perceiving her mistake, dropped down at her side, and supported her head; while congratulating eyes stole a glance at Juliet; who, at the sound of the pistol, had hastened, aghast, to the spot; but who now, dreading to be seen, retreated.

'Oh Elinor!' he then cried, 'what direful infatuation of wrong is this! – What have you done with your nobler, better self? – How have you thus warped your reason and your religion alike, to an equal and terrible defiance of here and hereafter?'

Recovering, at these interrogatories, to conscious failure, and conscious existence, she hastily arose, indignantly spurned at the tablet, looked around for Juliet with every mark of irritation, and, casting a glance of suffering, yet investigating shame at Harleigh, ''Tis again, then,' she cried, 'abortive! – and, a third time, I am food, for fools, – when I meant to be food only for worms!'

She then peremptorily demanded Juliet; who, affrighted, was absconding, till shrieks rather than calls forced her forward.

With an exaltation so violent that it seemed incipient frenzy, Elinor hailed her. 'Approach, Ellis, approach!' she cried. 'Oh chosen of the chosen! Oh born to shew, and prove the perfectibility of earthly happiness, and the falsehood and sophistry of the ignorance and superstition that deny it! Approach! and let me sanction your nuptial contract! I here solemnly give you back your promise. I renounce all tie over your actions, your engagements, your choice. Approach, then, that I may join your hands, while I quaff my last draught of tender poison from the grateful eyes of Harleigh, whose happiness, – my own donation! – will cast a glory upon my exit!'

Juliet stood motionless, pale, almost livid, and appearing nearly as unable to think as to speak. But the feelings of Harleigh were as much too actively alive, as hers seemed morbid. Agitation beat in every pulse, flowed in every vein, throbbed even visibly in his heart, which bounded with tumultuous triumph, that Juliet, now, was liberated from all adverse engagements: and though he sought, and meant, to turn his eyes, with tender pity, upon Elinor, they stole involuntarily, impulsively, glances of exstatic felicity at the mute and appalled Juliet.

The watchful Elinor discerned the distraction, which he imagined to be as impenetrable as it was irresistible. Shame, mingled with despondence, superseded her exaltation; and disdainfully, and even wrathfully, she disengaged herself from his hold; but, suspicious of some new violence, he hovered over her with extended arms; and presently caught a glimpse of a second pistol, placed behind the tablet, and, as nearly as possible, out of sight. Her intention could not be doubted; but, forcibly anticipating her movement, he seized the destined instrument of death, and, flying to the porch, fired it also into the air.

Elinor now was confounded; she reddened with confusion, trembled with ire, and seemed nearly fainting with excess of emotion; but, after holding her hands a minute or two crossed over her face, she forced a smile, and said, 'Harleigh, our tragi-comedy has a long last act! But you can never, now, believe me dead, till you see me buried. That, next, must follow!' And abruptly she was rushing out of the church, when she was encountered, in the porch, by her foreign servant, accompanied by the whole house of Mrs Maple.

Juliet, satisified that this victim to her own passions and delusions, would now fall into proper hands, eagerly glided past them all; and, finding the streets no longer empty, fled back to the mansion of Mrs Ireton.