nd hindered the fulfillment of our designs.
Jules arrived. During the five years he had been away he was much
changed in appearance, and that advantageously. I was struck when
I first saw him, but it was also easy to detect in those handsome
features and manly bearing, a spirit of restlessness and violence
which had already shown itself in him as a boy, and which passing
years, with their bitter experience and strong passions, had greatly
developed. The hope that we had cherished of D'Effernay's possible
indifference to me, of the change which time might have wrought in
his attachment, now seemed idle and absurd. His love was indeed
impassioned. He embraced me in a manner that made me shrink from him,
and altogether his deportment toward me was a strange contrast to
the gentle, tender, refined affection of our dear friend. I trembled
whenever Jules entered the room, and all that I had prepared to say
to him, all the plans which I had revolved in my mind respecting
him, vanished in an instant before the power of his presence, and
the almost imperative manner in which he claimed my hand. My father's
illness increased; he was now in a very precarious state, hopeless
indeed. Jules rivaled me in filial attentions to him, that I can never
cease to thank him for; but this illness made my situation more and
more critical, and it accelerated the fulfillment of the contract.
I was now to renew my promise to him by the death-bed of my father.
Alas, alas! I fell senseless to the ground when this announcement
was made to me. Jules began to suspect. Already my cold, embarrassed
manner toward him since his return had struck him as strange. He began
to suspect, I repeat, and the effect that this suspicion had on him,
it would be impossible to describe to you. Even now, after so long a
time, now that I am accustomed to his ways, and more reconciled to my
fate by the side of a noble, though somewhat impetuous man, it makes
me tremble to think of those paroxysms, which the idea that I did not
love him called forth. They were fearful; he nearly sank under them.
During two days his life was in danger. At last the storm passed, my
father died; Jules watched over me with the tenderness of a brother,
the solicitude of a parent; for that indeed I shall ever be grateful.
His suspicion once awakened, he gazed round with penetrating looks
to discover the cause of my altered feelings. But your friend never
came to our house; we met in an unfrequente