Page:Paul Clifford Vol 3.djvu/170

162 given, or require of love returned, was poured burningly over the pages; yet they were full of reproach—of jealousy—of a nice and torturing observation, as calculated to wound, as the ardour might be fitted to charm; and often, the bitter tendency to disdain that distinguished his temperament broke through the fondest enthusiasm of courtship, or the softest outpourings of love. "You saw me not yesterday," he wrote in one letter, "but I saw you; all day I was by you; you gave not a look which passed me unnoticed; you made not a movement which I did not chronicle in my memory.—Julia, do you tremble when I tell you this?—Yes, if you have a heart, I know these words have stabbed it to the core! You may affect to answer me indignantly! Wise dissembler!—it is very skilful—very, to assume anger, when you have no reply. I repeat, during the whole of that party of pleasure—(pleasure!—well, your tastes, it must be acknowledged, are exquisite!)—which you enjoyed yesterday, and which you so faintly asked me to share, my eye was on you. You did not know that I was in the wood when you took the arm of the incomparable