o go to Italy: I will go at once."

Georgiana looked straight at her, thinking: "This is a fit of
indignation with Wilfrid." She answered: "Italy! I fancied you had
forgotten there was such a country."

"I don't forget my country and my friends," said Emilia.

"At least, I must ask the ground of so unexpected a resolution," was
rejoined.

"Do you remember what Merthyr wrote in his letter from Arona? How long
it takes to understand the meaning of some, words! He says that I should
not follow an impulse that is not the impulse of all my nature--myself
altogether. Yes! I know what that means now. And he tells me that my
life is worth more than to be bound to the pledge of a silly moment.
It is! He, Georgey, unkind that you are!--he does not distrust me; but
always advises and helps me: Merthyr waits for me. I cannot be instantly
ready for every meaning in the world. What I want to do, is to see
Wilfrid: if not, I will write to him. I will tell him that I intend to
break my promise."

A light of unaffected pride shone from the girl's face, as she threw
down this gauntlet to sentimentalism.

"And if he objects?" said Georgiana.

"If he objects, what can happen? If he objects by letter, I am gone. I
shall not write for permission. I shall write what my will is. If I
see him, and he objects, I can look into his eyes and say what I think
right. Why, I have lived like a frozen thing ever since I gave him my
word. I have felt at times like a snake hissing at my folly. I think I
have felt something like men when they swear."

Georgiana's features expressed a slight but perceptible disgust. Emilia
continued humbly: "Forgive me. I wish you to know how I hate the word I
gave that separates me from Merthyr in my Italy, and makes you dislike
your poor Emilia. You do. I have pardoned it, though it was twenty stabs
a day."

"But, why, if this promise was so hateful to you, did you not break it
before?" asked Georgiana.

"I had not the courage," Emilia stooped her head to confess; "and
besides," she added, curiously half-closing her eyelids, as one does to
look on a minute object, "I could not see through it before."

"If," suggested Georgiana, "you break your word, you release him from
his."

"No! if he cannot see the difference," cried Emilia, wildly, "then
let him keep away from me for ever, and he shall not have the name of
friend! Is there no difference--I wish you would let me cry out as they
do in Shakespeare, Georg