Page:The Wanderer (1814 Volume 2).pdf/12

 the changed countenance which shewed the belief in it of Harleigh.

"If your rejection, Ellis, is that you may marry Lord Melbury, which alone makes its truth probable—you have done what is natural and pardonable, though heartless and mercenary; and you will offer me an opportunity to see how Harleigh—Albert Harleigh, will conduct himself when—like me!—he lives without hope.

"If, on the contrary, you have uttered that rejection, from the weak folly of dreading to witness a sudden and a noble end, to a fragile being, sighing for extinction,—on your own head fall your perjury and its consequences!

"I go hence immediately. No matter whither.

"Should I be pursued, I am aware I may soon be traced: but to what purpose? I am independent alike in person, fortune, and mind; I cannot be brought back by force, and I will not be moved by idle persuasion, or hacknied remon-