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DUTY AND INCLINATION.
197

fused and dazzled; a crowd of ideas pressed upon him with vehemence; a giddiness ensued, attended by a palpitation of the heart which oppressed his breathing.

Such outward demonstrations of acute feeling, in the continual change his colour underwent, were indeed alone sufficient to elicit the deepest interest, even in the most indifferent spectator. Acquainted with his past pretensions towards Rosilia, Herbert, in restoring the miniature to its usual place of concealment, fixed upon Douglas a look so disturbed and inquisitive, that the colour, in again rushing to the face of Douglas, left it in the next moment completely pallid. His hand pressed his aching temples, he tottered a few steps, and felt himself so exceedingly unwell, that he descended precipitately to his cabin; where Herbert, naturally compassionate, would have followed, had he not feared his presence might be deemed an intrusion upon his privacy.

The form of Douglas no longer riveted his eye, but it still kept possession of his thoughts; the striking symmetry of his commanding stature, the melancholy which hung over his manly brow, all pronounced him to be the same,—the Douglas of whom his mother had so often spoken,—the impassioned, enamoured, but rejected suitor of Rosilia.