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She desired, nevertheless, to pass, refusing every species of discussion.

"If you will not answer, will not speak," cried Harleigh, still obstructing her way, "fear not, at least, to hear! Are you not at liberty? Is not your persecutor gone?—Can he ever return?"

"Gone?" repeated Juliet.

"I have myself seen him embark! I rode after his chaise, I pursued it to the sea-coast, I saw him under sail."

Juliet, with uplifted eyes, clasped her hands, from an emotion of ungovernable joy; which a thousand blushes betrayed her vain struggles to suppress.

Harleigh observed not this unmoved: "Ah, Madam!" he cried, "since, thus critically, you have escaped;—since, thus happily, you are released;—since no church ritual has ever sanctioned the sacrilegious violence—"

"Spare all ineffectual controversy!" cried Juliet, assuming an air and tone of composure, with which her quick heaving bosom was ill in harmony; "I