And thou—­poor miserable man—­thou fratricide in mind—­and to thy best belief in act, how drags on now the burden of thy life?  For a day or two, spirits and segars muddled his brain, and so kept thoughts away:  but within a while they came on him too piercingly, and Julian writhed beneath those scorpion stings of hot and keen remorse:  and when the coast-guards dragged the Mullet, how that caitiff trembled! and when nothing could be found, how he wondered fearingly!  The only thing the wretched man could do, was to loiter, day after day, and all day long, upon the same high path which skirts the tortuous stream.  Fascinated there by hideous recollections, he could not leave the spot for hours:  and his soft-headed, romantic mother, noticing these deep abstractions, blessed him—­for her Julian was now in love with Emily.

CHAPTER XIII.

NEWS of Charles.

Ay—­in love with Emily!  Fiercely now did Julian pour his thoughts that way; if only hoping to forget murder in another strong excitement.  Julian listened to his mother’s counsels; and that silly, cheated woman playfully would lean upon his arm, like a huge, coy confidante, and fill his greedy ears (that heard her gladly for very holiday’s sake from fearful apprehensions), with lover’s hopes, lover’s themes, his Emily’s perfection.  Delighted mother—­how proud and pleased was she! quite in her own element, fanning dear Julian’s most sentimental flame, and scheming for him interviews with Emily.

It required all her skill—­for the girl clung closely to her guardian:  he, unconscious Argus, never tired of her company; and she, remembering dear Charles’s hint, and dreading to be left alone with Julian, would persist to sit day after day at her books, music, or needle-work in the study, charming General Tracy by her pretty Hindoo songs.  With him she walked out, and with him she came in; she would read to him for hours, whether he snored or listened; and, really, both mother and son were several long weeks before their scheming could come to any thing.  A tete-a-tete between Julian and Emily appeared as impossible to manage, as collision between Jupiter and Vesta.

However, after some six weeks of this sort of mining and counter-mining (for Emily divined their wishes), all on a sudden one morning the general received a letter that demanded his immediate presence for a day or two in town; something about prize-money at Puttymuddyfudgepoor.  Emily was too high-spirited, too delicate in mind, to tell her guardian of fears which never might be realized; and so, with some forebodings, but a cheerful trust, too, in a Providence above her, she saw the general off without a word, though not without a tear; he too, that stern, close man, was moved:  it was strange to see them love each other so.

The moment he was gone, she discreetly kept her chamber for the day, on plea of sickness; she had cried very heartily to see him leave her—­he had never yet left her once since she could recollect—­and thus she really had a head-ache, and a bad one.