still an apparent want of design in the manner, even after I was excited
accurately to compare my observations, and study the inferences to which
they led; for the effect of old habit was more visible than that of a
recently conceived purpose which was yet scarcely mature.

Mr. Falkland's situation was like that of a fish that plays with the
bait employed to entrap him. By my manner he was in a certain degree
encouraged to lay aside his usual reserve, and relax his stateliness;
till some abrupt observation or interrogatory stung him into
recollection, and brought back his alarm. Still it was evident that he
bore about him a secret wound. Whenever the cause of his sorrows was
touched, though in a manner the most indirect and remote, his
countenance altered, his distemper returned, and it was with difficulty
that he could suppress his emotions, sometimes conquering himself with
painful effort, and sometimes bursting into a sort of paroxysm of
insanity, and hastening to bury himself in solitude.

These appearances I too frequently interpreted into grounds of
suspicion, though I might with equal probability and more liberality
have ascribed them to the cruel mortifications he had encountered in the
objects of his darling ambition. Mr. Collins had strongly urged me to
secrecy; and Mr. Falkland, whenever my gesture or his consciousness
impressed him with the idea of my knowing more than I expressed, looked
at me with wistful earnestness, as questioning what was the degree of
information I possessed, and how it was obtained. But again at our next
interview the simple vivacity of my manner restored his tranquillity,
obliterated the emotion of which I had been the cause, and placed
things afresh in their former situation.

The longer this humble familiarity on my part had continued, the more