Mistress Debbitch turned the ring round, and round, and round, and at length said, in a whisper, "Well, Master Julian Peveril, it signifies nothing denying anything to such a young gentleman as you, for young gentlemen are always so obstinate! and so I may as well tell you, that Mistress Alice walked back from the Kirk-Truagh along with me, just now, and entered the house at the same time with myself." "Why did you not tell me so before ?" said Julian, starting up; "where--where is she ?" "You had better ask why I tell you so _now_, Master Julian," said Dame Deborah; "for, I promise you, it is against her express commands; and I would not have told you, had you not looked so pitiful;--but as for seeing you, that she will not--and she is in her own bedroom, with a good oak door shut and bolted upon her--that is one comfort .-- And so, as for any breach of trust on my part--I promise you the little saucy minx gives it no less name--it is quite impossible." "Do not say so, Deborah--only go--only try--tell her to hear me--tell her I have a hundred excuses for disobeying her commands--tell her I have no doubt to get over all obstacles at Martindale Castle." "Nay, I tell you it is all in vain," replied the Dame.

"When I saw your cap and rod lying in the hall, I did but say, 'There he is again,' and she ran up the stairs like a young deer; and I heard key turned, and bolt shot, ere I could say a single word to stop her--I marvel you heard her not." "It was because I am, as I ever was, an owl--a dreaming fool, who let all those golden minutes pass, which my luckless life holds out to me so rarely .-- Well--tell her I go--go for ever--go where she will hear no more of me--where no one shall hear more of me!" "Oh, the Father!" said the dame, "hear how he talks!--What will become of Sir Geoffrey, and your mother, and of me, and of the Countess, if you were to go so far as you talk of?
And what would become of poor Alice too?
for I will be sworn she likes you better than she says, and I know she used to sit and look the way that you used to come up the stream, and now and then ask me if the morning were good for fishing.

And all the while you were on the continent, as they call it, she scarcely smiled once, unless it was when she got two beautiful long letters about foreign parts." "Friendship, Dame Deborah--only friendship--cold and calm remembrance of one who, by your kind permission, stole in on your solitude now and then, with news from the living world without--Once, indeed, I thought--but it is all over--farewell." So saying, he covered his face with one hand, and extended the other, in the act of bidding adieu to Dame Debbitch, whose kind heart became unable to withstand the sight of his affliction.
"Now, do not be in such haste," she said; "I will go up again, and tell her how it stands with you, and bring her down, if it is in woman's power to do it." And so saying, she left the apartment, and ran upstairs.
Julian Peveril, meanwhile, paced the apartment in great agitation, waiting the success of Deborah's intercession; and she remained long enough absent to give us time to explain, in a short retrospect, the circumstances which had led to his present situation..