Monsieur de Moras seemed to have infinite difficulty in comprehending the meaning of this speech; he remained for several seconds after Lucan had ceased to speak, with wondering countenance and fixed gaze, as if trying to find the solution of a riddle; then rising abruptly and grasping both Lucan's hands:

"Ah! that's kind of you, that is!" he said with grave emotion.

And after another cordial grasp, he added gayly:

"But if you expect to stay in Sweden until I have married Clotilde, you may begin building and even planting there, for I swear to you that you shall stay long enough for either purpose."

"Is it possible that you do not love her?" said Lucan in a half whisper.

"I love her very much, on the contrary; I appreciate her, I admire her; but she is a sister to me, purely a sister. The most delightful thing about it, mon cher, is that it has always been my dream to have you and Clotilde marry; only you seemed to be so cold, so little attentive, so rebellious, particularly lately. Mon Dieu! how pale you are, George!"

The final result of this conversation was that Monsieur de Lucan, instead of starting for Sweden, called a little later to see the Baroness de Pers, to whom he exposed his aspirations, and who thought herself, as she listened to him, in the midst of an enchanting dream. She had, however, beneath her frivolous manners too profound a sentiment of her own dignity and that of her daughter, to manifest in the presence of Monsieur de Lucan the joy that overwhelmed her. Whatever desire she might have felt of clasping immediately upon her heart this ideal son-in-law, she deferred that satisfaction and contented herself with expressing to him her personal sympathy. Appreciating, however, Monsieur de Lucan's just impatience, she advised him to call that very evening upon Madame de Trecoeur, of whose personal sentiments she was herself ignorant, but who could not fail to meet his advances with the esteem and the consideration due to a man of his merit and standing. Being left alone, the baroness gave way to her feelings in a soliloquy mingled with tears; she, however, purposely omitted to notify Clotilde, preferring with her maternal taste to leave her the whole enjoyment of that surprise.

The heart of woman is an organ infinitely more delicate than ours. The constant exercise which they give it develops within it finer and subtler faculties than the dry masculine intellect can ever hope to possess; that accounts for their presentiments, less rare and more certain than ours. It seems as though their sensibility, always strained and vibrating, might be warned by mysterious currents of divine instinct, and that it guesses even before it can understand. Clotilde, when Monsieur de Lucan was announced, was, as it were, struck by one of these secret electric thrills, and in spite of all the objections to the contrary that beset her mind, she felt that she was loved, and that she was on the point of being told so. She sat down in her great arm-chair, drawing up with both hands the silk of her dress, with the gesture of a bird that flaps its wings. Lucan's visible agitation further enlightened and delighted her. In such men, armed with powerful but sternly restrained passions, accustomed to control their own feelings, intrepid and calm, agitation is either frightful or charming.

After informing her—which was entirely useless—that his visit to her was one of unusual importance:

"Madam," he added, "the request I am about to address you demands, I know, a well-matured answer. I will therefore beg of you not to give that answer to-day, the more so that it would indeed be painful to me to hear it from your own lips if it where not a favorable one."

"Mon Dieu! monsieur!" said Clotilde faintly.

"The baroness, your mother, madam, whom I had the pleasure of seeing during the day, was kind enough to hold out some encouragement to me—in a measure—and to permit me to hope that you might entertain some esteem for me, or at least that you had no prejudice against me. As to myself madam, I—mon Dieu! I love you, in a word, and I cannot imagine a greater happiness in the world than that which I would hold at your hands. You have known me for a long time; I have nothing to tell you concerning myself. And now, I shall wait."

She detained him with a sign of her hand, and tried to speak; but her eyes filled with tears. She hid her face in her hands, and she murmured:

"Excuse me! I have been so rarely happy! I don't know what it is!"

Lucan got gently down upon his knees before her, and when their eyes met, their two hearts suddenly filled like two cups.

"Speak, my friend!" she resumed. "Tell me again that you love me. I was so far from thinking it! And why is it? And since when?"

He explained to her his mistake, his painful struggle between his love for her and his friendship for Pierre.

"Poor Pierre!" said Clotilde, "what an excellent fellow. But no, really!"

Then he made her smile by telling her what mortal terror and apprehension had taken possession of his soul at the moment when he was asking her to decide upon his fate; she had seemed too him, more than ever, at that moment, a lovely and sainted creature, and so much above him, that his pretension of being loved by her, of becoming her husband, had suddenly appeared to him as a pretension almost sacrilegious.

"Oh, mon Dieu!" she said, "what an opinion have you formed of me, then? It's frightful! On the contrary, I thought myself too simple, too commonplace for you; I thought that you must be fond of romantic passions, of great adventures; you have somewhat the appearance of it, and even the reputation; and I am so far from being a woman of that kind!"

Upon that slight invitation, he told her two events of his past life which had been full of trite excitement, and had afforded him nothing but disappointment and disgust. Never, however, before having met her, had the thought of marrying occurred to him; in the matter of love as in the matter of friendship, he had always had the imagination taken up with a certain ideal, somewhat romantic indeed, and he had feared never to find it in marriage. He might have looked for it elsewhere, in great adventures, as she said; but he loved order and dignity in life, and he had the misfortune of being unable to live at war with his own conscience. Such had been his agitated youth.

"You ask me," he went on with effusion, "why I love you. I love you because you alone have succeeded in harmonizing within my heart two sentiments which had hitherto struggled for its mastery at the cost of fearful anguish; honor and passion. Never before knowing you had I yielded to one of these sentiments without being made wretched by the other. They always seemed, irreconcilable to me. Never had I yielded to passion without remorse; never had I resisted it without regret. Whether weak or strong, I have always been unhappy and tortured. You alone made me understand that I could love at once with all the ardor and all the dignity of my soul; and I selected you because you are affectionate and you are sincere; because you are handsome and you are pure; because there are embodied in you both duty and rapture, love and respect, intoxication and peace. Such is the woman, such is the angel you are to me, Clotilde."

She listened to him half reclining, drinking in his words and manifesting in her eyes a sort of celestial surprise.

But it seems—who has not experienced it?—that human happiness cannot touch certain heights without drawing the lightning upon itself. Clotilde in the midst of her ecstasy shuddered suddenly and started to her feet. She had just heard a smothered cry, followed by the dull sound of a falling body. She ran, opened the door, and in the center of the adjoining room saw Julia stretched upon the floor.

She supposed that the child at the moment of entering the parlor had overheard some of their words, and then the thought of seeing her father's place occupied by another, striking her thus without warning, had stirred to its very depths that passionate young soul. Clotilde followed her into her room, where she had her carried, and expressed the wish of remaining alone with her. While lavishing upon her cares, caresses, and kisses, it was not without fearful anguish that she awaited her daughter's first glance. That glance fell upon her at first with vague uncertainty, then with a sort of wild stupor. The child pushed her away, gently; she was trying to collect her ideas, and as the expression of her thought grew firmer in her eyes, her mother could plainly read in them a violent strife of opposing feelings.

"I beg of you, I beseech you, my darling daughter," murmured Clotilde, whose tears fell drop by drop upon the pale visage of the child.

Suddenly Julia seized her by the neck, drew her down upon herself, and kissing her passionately:

"You have hurt me much," she said, "oh! very much more than you can imagine; but I love you. I love you a great deal; I shall, I must always, I assure you."

She burst into sobs, and both wept long, closely clasped to each other.

In the meantime Monsieur de Lucan had deemed it advisable to send for the Baroness de Pers, whom he was entertaining in the parlor. The baroness on hearing what was going on had manifested more agitation than surprise.

"Mon Dieu!" she exclaimed, "I expected it fully, my dear sir. I did not tell you anything about it, because we hadn't got so far yet; but I expected it fully. That child will kill my daughter. She will finish what her father has so well begun; for it is purely a miracle if my daughter, after all she has suffered, has been able to recover as far as you see. I must leave them together. I am not going in there. Oh, mon Dieu! I am not going in there! In the first place, I would be afraid of annoying my daughter, and besides, that would be entirely out of my character."

"How old is Mademoiselle Julia?" inquired Lucan, who retained under these painful circumstances his quiet courtesy.

"Why, she is almost fifteen, and I'm not sorry for it, by the way, for, entre nous, we may reasonably hope to get honestly rid of her within a year or two. Oh! she will have no trouble in getting married, no trouble whatever, you may be sure. In the first place she is rich, and then, after all, she is a pretty monster, there is no gainsaying that, and there is no lack of men who admire that style."

Clotilde joined them at last. Whatever might have been her inward emotion, she appeared calm, having nothing theatrical in her ways. She replied simply, in a low and gentle voice, to her mother's feverish questions; she remained convinced that this misfortune would not have happened, if she could have herself informed Julia, with some precautions, of the event which chance had abruptly revealed to her. Addressing then a sad smile to Monsieur de Lucan:

"These family difficulties, sir," she said to him, "could not have formed a part of your anticipations, and I should deem it quite natural were they to lead to some modification of your plans.":

An expressive anxiety became depicted upon Lucan's features. "If you ask me to restore to you your freedom," he said, "I cannot but comply; if it is your delicacy alone that has spoken, I beg to assure you that you are still dearer to me since I have seen you suffer on my account, and suffer with so much dignity."

She held out her hand, which he seized, bowing low at the same time.

"I shall love your daughter so much," he said, "that she will forgive me."

"Yes, I hope so," said Clotilde; "nevertheless, she wishes to enter a convent for a few months, and I have consented."

Her voice trembled and her eyes became moist.

"Excuse me, sir," she added; "I have no right as yet to make you participate to such an extent in my sorrows. May I beg of you to leave me alone with my mother?"

Lucan murmured a few words of respect, and withdrew. It was quite true, as he had said, that Clotilde was dearer to him than ever. Nothing had inspired him with such a lofty idea of the moral worth of that woman as her attitude during that trying evening. Stricken in the midst of her flight of happiness, she had fallen without a cry, without a groan, striving to hide her wound; she had manifested in his presence that exquisite modesty in suffering so rare among her sex. He was the more grateful to her for it, that he was deeply averse to those pathetic and turbulent demonstrations which most women never fail to eagerly exhibit on every occasion, when they are indeed kind enough not to bring them about.



CHAPTER III.

JULIA'S CHAMPION.

Monsieur de Lucan had been Clotilde's husband for several months when the rumor spread among society that Mademoiselle de Trecoeur, formerly known as such an incarnate little devil, was about taking the vail in the convent of the Faubourg Saint Germain, to which she had withdrawn before her mother's marriage. That rumor was well founded. Julia had endured at first with some difficulty the discipline and the observances to which the simple boarders of the establishment were themselves bound to submit; then she had been gradually taken with a pious fervor, the excesses of which they had been compelled to moderate. She had begged her mother not to put an obstacle to the irresistible inclination which she felt for a religious life, and Clotilde had with difficulty obtained permission that she should adjourn her resolution until the accomplishment of her sixteenth year.

Madame de Lucan's relations with her daughter since her marriage had been of a singular character. She came almost daily to visit her, and always received the liveliest manifestations of affection at her hands; but on two points, and those the most sensitive, the young girl had remained inflexible; she had never consented either to return to the maternal roof, nor to see her mother's husband.

She had even remained for a long time without making the slightest allusion to Clotilde's altered situation, which she affected to ignore. One day, at last, feeling the intolerable torture of such a reserve, she made up her mind, and fixing her flashing eyes upon her mother:

"Well, are you happy at last?" she said.

"How can I be," said Clotilde, "since you hate the man I love?"

"I hate no one," replied Julia, dryly. "How is your husband?"

From that moment she inquired regularly after Monsieur de Lucan in a tone of polite indifference; but she never uttered without hesitation and evident discomfort the name of the man who had taken her father's place.

In the meantime she had reached her sixteenth year. Her mother's promise had been formal. Julia was henceforth free to follow her vocation, and she was preparing for it with an impatient ardor that edified the good ladies of the convent. Madame de Lucan expressing, one morning, in the presence of her mother and her husband the anxiety that oppressed her heart during these last days of respite:

"As to me, my daughter," said the baroness, "I must confess that I am urging with all my wishes and prayers the moment which you seem to dread. The life you have been leading since your marriage has nothing human about it; but what forms its principal torment, is the constant struggle which you have to sustain against that child's obstinacy. Well, when she has become a nun, there will no longer be any struggle; the situation will be clearer; and note that you will not be in reality any more separated than you are now, since the house is not a cloister; I would just as lief it were, myself; but it is not. And then, why oppose a vocation which I really look upon as providential? In the interest of the child herself, you should congratulate yourself upon the resolution she has taken; I appeal to your husband to say if that is not so. Come, let me ask you, my dear sir, what could be expected of such an organization, if she were once let loose upon the world? Why! she would be a dangerous character for society! You know what a head she has! a volcano! And pray observe, my friend, that at this present moment she is a perfect odalisk. You have not seen her for some time; you cannot imagine how she has developed. I, who enjoy the treat of seeing her twice a week, can positively assure you that she is a perfect odalisk, and besides, divinely dressed. In fact, she is so well made! you might throw a window-curtain over her with a pitch-fork, and she would look as if she were just coming out of Worth's! There, ask Pierre what he thinks about it, he who has the honor of being admitted to her good graces!"

Monsieur de Moras, who was coming in at that very moment, shared, indeed, with a very limited number of friends of the family, the privilege of accompanying Clotilde occasionally on her visits to Julia's convent.

"Well, my good Pierre," resumed the baroness, "we were speaking of Julia, and I was telling my son-in-law that it was really quite fortunate that she was willing to become a saint, because otherwise she would certainly set Paris on fire!"

"Because?" asked the count.

"Because she is beautiful as Sin!"

"Undoubtedly she is quite good-looking," said the count somewhat coldly.

The baroness having gone out on some errands with Clotilde, Monsieur de Moras remained alone with Lucan.

"It really seems to me," he said to the latter, "that our poor Julia is being very harshly treated."

"In what way?"

"Her grandmother speaks of her as of a perverse creature! And what fault do they find with her after all? Her worship of her father's memory! It is excessive, I grant; but filial piety, even when exaggerated, is not a vice, that I know of. Her sentiments are exalted; what does it matter if they are generous? Is that a reason why she should be devoted to the infernal divinities and thrust out of the way to be forgotten?"

"But you are very strange, my friend, I assure you," said Lucan. "What is the matter with you? whom do you mean to blame? You are certainly aware that Julia proposes taking the vail wholly of her own accord; that her mother is distressed about it, and that she has spared no effort to dissuade her from that step. As to myself, I have no reason whatever to be fond of her; she has caused and is still causing me much grief; but you know well enough that I have ever been ready to greet her as my daughter, if she had deigned to return to us."

"Oh! I accuse neither her mother nor yourself, of course; it is the baroness who irritates me; she is unnatural! Julia is her grandchild after all, and she rejoices—she positively rejoices—at the prospect of seeing her a nun!"

"Ma foi, I declare to you that I am not far from rejoicing too. The situation is too painful for Clotilde; it must be brought to an end; and as I see no other possible solution—"

"But I beg your pardon; there might be another."

"And which?"

"She might marry."

"How likely! and marry—whom, pray?"

The count approached nearer to Lucan, looked him straight in the face, and smiling with some embarrassment:

"Me!" he said.

"Repeat that!" said Lucan.

"Mon cher," rejoined the count, "you see that I am as red as a peony; spare me. I have wished for a long time to broach that delicate question to you, but my courage has failed me; since I have found it, at last, don't deprive me of it."

"My dear friend," said Lucan, "allow me to recover a little first, for I am falling from the clouds. What! you are in love with Julia?"

"To an extraordinary degree, my friend."

"No! there is something under that; you have discovered this means of drawing us together, and you wish to sacrifice yourself for the peace of the family."

"I swear to you that I am not thinking in the least of the peace of the family; I am thinking wholly of my own, which is very much disturbed, for I love that child with an energy of feeling that I never knew before. If I don't marry her, I shall never console myself for the rest of my life."

"To that extent?" said Lucan, dumfounded.

"It is a terrible thing, mon cher," rejoined Monsieur de Moras. "I am absolutely in love; when she looks at me, when I touch her hand, when her dress rustles against me, I feel, as it were, a philter running through my veins. I had heard of emotions of that kind, but I had never felt them. I must confess that they delight me; but at the same time they distress me, for I cannot conceal the fact to myself that there are a thousand chances against one that my passion will not be reciprocated, and it really seems as though my heart should wear mourning for it as long as it shall beat."

"What an adventure!" said Lucan, who had recovered all his gravity. "That is a very serious matter; very annoying."

He walked a few steps about the parlor, absorbed in thoughts that seemed of a rather somber character.

"Is Julia aware of your sentiments?" he said, suddenly.

"Most certainly not; I would not have taken the liberty of informing her of them without first speaking to you. Will you be kind enough to act as my ambassador to her mother?"

"Why, yes, with pleasure," said Lucan, with a shade of hesitation that did not escape his friend.

"You think that is useless, don't you?" said the count with a forced smile.

"Useless—why so?"

"In the first place, it is very late."

"It is somewhat late, no doubt. Things have gone very far; but I have never had much confidence in the stability of Julia's ideas of her vocation. Besides, in these restless imaginations, the sincerest resolutions of to-day become readily the dislikes of the morrow."

"But you doubt that—that I should succeed in pleasing her?"

"Why should you not please her? You are more than good-looking. You are thirty-two years old; she is sixteen. You are a little richer than she is. All that does very well."

"Well, then, why do you hesitate to serve me?"

"I do not hesitate to serve you; only I see you very much in love; you are not accustomed to it, and I fear that a condition of things so novel for you might be urging you somewhat hastily to such a grave determination as marriage. A wife is not a mistress. In short, before taking an irrevocable step I would beg of you to think well and further over it."

"My good friend," said the count, "I do not wish, and I believe quite sincerely that I cannot, do so. You know my ideas. Genuine passions always have the best of it, and I am not quite sure that honor itself is a very effective argument against them. As to setting up reason against them, it is worse than folly. Besides, come, Lucan, what is there so unreasonable in the simple fact of marrying a person I love? I don't see that it is absolutely necessary for a man not to love his wife—Well! can I rely upon you?"

"Completely so," said Lucan, taking his hand. "I raised my objections; now I am wholly at your service. I shall speak to Clotilde in a moment. She is going to see her daughter this afternoon. Come and dine with us to-night; but summon up all your courage, for, after all, success is very uncertain."

Monsieur de Lucan found it no difficult task to gain the cause of Monsieur de Moras with Clotilde. After hearing him, not, however, without interrupting him more than once with exclamations of surprise:

"Mon Dieu!" she replied, "that would be an ideal! Not only would that marriage put an end to projects that break my heart, but it offers all the conditions of happiness that I can possibly think of for my daughter; and furthermore, the friendship that binds you to Pierre would naturally, some day, bring about a rapprochement between his wife and yourself. All that would be too fortunate; but how could we hope for such a complete and sudden revolution in Julia's ideas? She will not even allow me to deliver my message to the end."

She left, palpitating with anxiety. She found Julia alone in her room, trying on before a mirror her novice's dress; the vail that was to conceal her luxuriant hair was laid upon the bed; she was simply dressed in a long, white woolen tunic, whose folds she was engaged in adjusting.

She blushed when she saw her mother come in; then with an insipient laugh:

"Cymodocea in the circus, isn't it, mother?"

Clotilde made no answer; she had joined her hands in a supplicating attitude, and wept as she looked at her. Julia was moved by that mute sorrow; two tears rolled from her eyes, and she threw her arms around her mother's neck; then, taking a seat by her side:

"What can I do?" she said; "I, too, feel some regret at heart, for, after all, I was fond of life; but aside from my vocation, which I believe quite real, I am yielding to a positive necessity. There is no other existence possible for me but that one. I know very well—it's my own fault; I have been somewhat foolish—I should not have left you in the first place, or at least, I should have returned to your house immediately after your marriage. Now, after months, and even years, is it possible, I ask you? In the first place, I would die with shame. Can you imagine me in the presence of your husband? What sort of countenance could I put on? And then, he must fairly detest me, the bent must be firmly taken in his mind. Finally, I should be in all respects terribly in your way!"

"But, my dear child, no one hates you; you would be received with transports of joy, like the prodigal child. If you deem it too painful to return to my home—if you fear to find or to bring trouble there with you—God knows how mistaken you are on this point! but still, if you do fear it, is that a reason why you should bury yourself alive and break my heart? Could you not return into the world without returning to my own house, and without having to face all those difficulties that frighten you? There would be a very simple way of doing that, you know!"

"What is it?" said Julia quietly; "to marry?"

"Undoubtedly," said Clotilde, shaking her head gently and lowering her voice.

"But, mon Dieu! mother, what possible chance is there of such a thing? Suppose I were willing—and I am far from it—I know no one, no one knows me."

"There is some one," rejoined Clotilde, with increasing timidity; "some one whom you know perfectly well, and who—who adores you."

Julia opened her eyes wide with a pensive and surprised expression, and after a brief pause of reflection:

"Pierre?" she said.

"Yes," murmured Clotilde, pale with anxiety.

Julia's eyebrows became slightly contracted; she raised her head and remained for a few seconds with her eyes fixed upon the ceiling; then, with a slight shrug of her shoulders:

"Why not?" she said gravely. "I would as soon have him as any one else!"

Clotilde uttered a feeble cry, and grasping both her daughter's hands:

"You consent?" she said; "you really consent? And may I take your answer to him?"

"Yes, but you had better change the text of it," said Julia, laughing.

"Oh! my darling, darling dear!" exclaimed Clotilde, covering Julia's hands with kisses; "but repeat again that it is all true—that by to-morrow you will not have changed your mind."

"I will not change my mind," said Julia, firmly, in her grave and musical voice.

She meditated for a moment and then resumed:

"Really, he loves me, that big fellow!"

"Like a madman."

"Poor man! And he is waiting for an answer?"

"With the utmost anxiety."

"Well, go and quiet his fears. We will take up the subject again to-morrow. I require to put a little order in my thoughts after all this confusion and excitement, you understand; but you may rest easy. I have decided."

When Madame de Lucan returned home, Pierre de Moras was waiting for her in the parlor. He turned very pale when he saw her.

"Pierre!" she said, all panting still, "come and kiss me, you are my son! Respectfully, if you please, respectfully!" she added laughingly as he lifted her up and clasped her to his heart.

A little later, he had the gratification of treating in the same manner the Baroness de Pers, who had been sent for in haste.

"My dear friend," said the baroness, "I am delighted, really delighted, but you are choking me—yes, yes, it is all for the best, my dear fellow—but you are literally choking me, I tell you! Reserve yourself, my friend, reserve yourself!—The dear child! that's quite nice of her, quite nice! In point of fact, she has a heart of gold! And then she has good taste, too, for you are very handsome yourself, very handsome, mon cher, very handsome! To be perfectly candid, I always had an idea that, at the moment of cutting off her hair, she would think the matter over. And she has such beautiful hair, the poor child!"

And the baroness melted into tears; then addressing the count in the midst of her sobs:

"You'll not be very unhappy either, by the way; she is a goddess!"

Monsieur de Lucan, though deeply moved by this family tableau, and above all, by Clotilde's joy, took more coolly that unexpected event. Besides that he did not generally show himself very demonstrative in public, he was sad and anxious at heart. The future prospects of this marriage seemed extremely uncertain to him, and in his profound friendship for the count he felt alarmed. He had not ventured, through a sentiment of delicate reserve toward Julia, upon telling him all he thought of her character and disposition. He strove to banish from his mind as partial and unjust the opinion he had formed of her; but still he could not help remembering the terrible child he had known once, at times wild as a hurricane, at others pensive and wrapped in gloomy reserve; he tried to imagine her such as she had been described to him since; tall, handsome, ascetic; then he fancied her suddenly casting her vail to the winds, like one of the fantastic nuns in "Robert le Diable," and returning swift-footed into the world; of all these various impressions he composed, in spite of himself, a figure of Chimera and Sphinx, which he found very difficult to connect with the idea of domestic happiness.

They discussed in the family circle, during the whole evening, the complications which might arise from that marriage project, and the means of avoiding them. Monsieur de Lucan entered into all these details with the utmost good grace, and declared that he would lend himself heartily, for his own part, to all the arrangements which his daughter-in-law might wish. That precaution was not destined to be useless.

Early the next morning, Clotilde returned to the convent. Julia, after listening with slightly ironical nonchalance to the account which her mother gave her of the transports and the joy of her intended, assumed a more serious air.

"And your husband," she said, "what does he think of it?"

"He is delighted, as we all are."

"I am going to ask you a single question: does he expect to be present at our wedding?"

"That will be just as you like."

"Listen, good little mother, and don't grieve in advance. I know very well that sooner or later, this marriage must be the means of bringing us all together; but let me have a little time to become accustomed to the idea. Grant me a few months so that the old Julia may be forgotten, and I may forget her myself—you will; say, won't you?"

"Anything you please," said Clotilde, with a sigh.

"I beg of you. Tell him that I beg of him, too."

"I'll tell him; but do you know that Pierre is here?"

"Ah! mon Dieu! and where did you leave him?"

"I left him in the garden."

"In the garden! how imprudent, mother! why, the ladies are going to tear him to pieces—like Orpheus, for you may well believe that he is not in the odor of sanctity here."

Monsieur de Moras was sent for at once, and he came up in all haste. Julia began laughing as he appeared at the door, which facilitated his entree. She had several times, during their interview, fits of that nervous laughter which is so useful to women in trying circumstances. Deprived of that resource, Monsieur de Moras contented himself with kissing the beautiful hands of his cousin, and was otherwise generally wanting in eloquence; but his handsome and manly features were resplendent, and his large blue eyes were moist with gratified affection. He appeared to leave a favorable impression.

"I had never considered him in that light," said Julia to her mother; "he is very handsome—he will make a splendid-looking husband."

The marriage took place three months later, privately and without any display. The Count de Moras and his youthful bride left for Italy the same evening.

Monsieur de Lucan had left Paris two or three weeks before, and had taken up his quarters in an old family residence at the very extremity of Normandy, where Clotilde hastened to join him immediately after Julia's departure.



CHAPTER IV.

A GREWSOME ABODE.

Vastville, the patrimonial domain of the Lucan family, is situated a short distance from the sea, on the west coast of the Norman Finisterre. It is a manor with high roof and wrought-iron balconies, which dates from the time of Louis XIII., and which has taken the place of the old castle, a few ruins of which still serve to ornament the park. It is concealed in a thickly shaded depression of the soil, and a long avenue of antique elms precedes it. The aspect of it is singularly retired and melancholy, owing to the dense woods that surround it on all sides. This wooded thicket marks, on this point of the peninsula, the last effort of the vigorous vegetation of Normandy. As soon as its edge has been crossed, the view extends suddenly and without obstacle over the vast moors which form the triangular plateau of the Cape La Hague; fields of furze and heather, stone fences without cement, here and there a cross of granite, on the right and on the left the distant undulations of the ocean—such is the severe but grand landscape that is suddenly unfolded to the eyes beneath the unobstructed light of the heavens.

Monsieur de Lucan was born in Vastville. The poetic reminiscences of childhood mingled in his imagination with the natural poetry of that site, and made it dear to him. Under pretext of hunting, he came on a pilgrimage to it every year. Since his marriage only, he had given up that habit of the heart, in order not to leave Clotilde, who was detained in Paris by her daughter; but it had been agreed upon that they would go and bury themselves in that retreat for a season as soon as they had recovered their liberty. Clotilde only knew Vastville from her husband's enthusiastic descriptions; she loved it on his representations, and it was for her, in advance, an enchanted spot. Nevertheless, when the carriage that brought her from the station entered, at nightfall, among the wooded hills, in the gloomy avenue that led up to the chateau, she felt an impression as of cold.

"Mon Dieu! my dear," she said, laughingly, "your chateau is a perfect castle of Udolpho!"

Lucan excused his chateau as best he could, and protested, moreover, that he was ready to leave it the very next day, if she were not better pleased with its appearance after sunrise.

It was not long before she became passionately fond of it. Her happiness, hitherto so constrained, blossomed freely for the first time in that solitude, and shed upon it a charming light. She even expressed the wish of spending the winter and waiting there for Julia, who was to return to France in the course of the following year. Lucan offered some slight opposition to that project, which appeared to him rather over-heroic for a Parisian, but ended by adopting it, too happy himself to harbor the romance of his love in that romantic spot. He began, however, taxing his ingenuity to attenuate what there might be too austere in that abode, by opening relations with some of the neighbors for Clotilde's benefit, and by procuring her, at intervals, her mother's society. Madame de Pers was kind enough to lend herself to that combination, although the country was generally repulsive to her, and Vastville in particular had in her eyes a sinister character. She pretended that she heard at night noises in the walls and moans in the woods. She slept with one eye open and two candles burning. The magnificent cliffs that bordered the coast a short distance off, and which they tried to make her admire, caused her a painful sensation.

"Very fine!" she said, "very wild! quite wild! But it makes me sick; I feel as though I were on top of the towers of Notre Dame! Besides, my children, love beautifies everything, and I understand your transports perfectly. As to myself, you must excuse me if I do not share them. I can never go into ecstasies over such a country as this. I am as fond of the country as any one, but this is not the country—it is the desert, Arabia Petroea, I know not what. And as to your chateau, my dear friend—I am sorry to tell you so: it has a savor of crime. Look well, and you'll see that a murder has been committed in it."

"Why, no, my dear madam," replied Lucan laughingly, "I know perfectly the history of my family, and I can guarantee you—"

"Rest assured, my friend, that some one has been killed in it—in old times. You know how little they troubled themselves about those things formerly!"

Julia's letters to her mother were frequent. It was a regular journal of travels written helter-skelter, with a striking originality of style, in which the vivacity of the impressions was corrected by that shade of haughty irony which was a peculiarity of the writer. Julia spoke rather briefly of her husband, but always in pleasant terms. There was generally a rapid and kindly postscript addressed to Monsieur de Lucan.

Monsieur de Moras was more chary of descriptions. He seemed to see no one but his wife in Italy. He extolled her beauty, still further enhanced, he said, by the contact of all those marvels of art with which she was becoming impregnated; he praised her extraordinary taste, her intelligence, and even her good disposition. In this latter respect, she was extremely matured, and he found her almost too staid and too grave for her age. These particulars delighted Clotilde, and finished instilling into her heart a peace she had never yet enjoyed.

The count's letters were not less reassuring for the future than the present. He did not think it necessary, he said, to urge Julia on the subject of her reconciliation with her step-father; but he felt that she was quite ready for it. He was, besides, preparing her more and more for it by conversing habitually with her of the old friendship that united him to Monsieur de Lucan, of their past life, of their travels, of the perils they had braved together. Not only did Julia hear these narratives without revolt, but she often solicited them, as if she had regretted her prejudices, and had sought good reasons to forget them.

"Come, Pylades, speak to me of Orestes!" she would say.

After having spent the whole winter season and part of the spring in Italy, Monsieur and Madame de Moras visited Switzerland, announcing their intention of sojourning there until the middle of summer. The thought occurred to Monsieur and Madame de Lucan to go and join them there, and thus abruptly bring about a reconciliation that seemed henceforth to be but a mere matter of form. Clotilde was preparing to submit that project to her daughter when she received, one beautiful May morning, the following letter dated from Paris:

"BELOVED MOTHER:—'No more Switzerland!' too much Switzerland! Here I am; don't disturb yourself. I know how much you are enjoying yourself at Vastville. We'll go and join you there one of these fine mornings, and we'll all come home together in the autumn. I only ask of you a few days to look after our future establishment here.

"We are at the Grand Hotel. I did not choose to stop at your house, for all sorts of reasons, nor at my grandmother's, who, however, insisted very kindly upon our doing so:

"'Oh! mon Dieu! my dear children—that must not be—in a hotel! why, that is not proper. You cannot remain in a hotel! come and stay with me. mon Dieu! you'll be very uncomfortable. You'll be camping out, as it were. I don't even know how I'll manage to give you anything to eat, for my cook is sick abed, and that stupid coachman of mine, by the way, has a stye on his eye! But why not let people know you were coming? You fall upon me like two flower-pots from a window! It's incredible! You are in good health, my friend? I need not ask you. It shows plainly enough. And you, my beautiful pet? Why! it is the sun; the sun itself. Hide yourself—you are dazzling my eyes! Have you any luggage? Well, we'll just put it in the parlor; it can't be helped. And as to yourselves, I'll give you my own room. I'll engage a housekeeper and hire a driver from some livery stable. You'll not be in my way at all, not at all, not at all!'

"In short, we did not accept.

"But the explanation of this sudden return! Here it is:

"'Are you not tired of Switzerland, my dear?' I asked of my husband.

"'I am tired of Switzerland,' replied that faithful echo.

"'Suppose we go away, then?'

"And away we went.

"Glad and moved to the bottom of my soul at the thought of soon kissing you,

JULIA.

"P.S.—I beg Monsieur de Lucan not to intimidate me."

The days that followed were delightfully busy for Clotilde. She herself unpacked the parcels that constantly kept coming, and put the contents away with her own maternal hands. She unfolded and folded again, she caressed those skirts, those waists of fine and perfumed linen, which were already to her like a part of her daughter's person. Lucan, a little jealous, surprised her meditating lovingly over these pretty things. She went to the stables to see Julia's horse, which had followed soon after the boxes; she gave him lumps of sugar and chatted with him. She filled with flowers and verdant foliage the apartments set apart for the young couple.

This fever of happiness soon came to its happy termination. About a week after her arrival in Paris, Julia wrote to her mother that they expected, her husband and herself, to leave that evening, and that they would be in Cherbourg the next morning. Clotilde prepared, of course, to go and meet them with her carriage. Monsieur de Lucan, after duly conferring with her on the subject, thought best not to accompany her. He feared that he might interfere with the first emotions of the return, and yet, not wishing that Julia should attribute his absence to a lack of attention, he resolved to go and meet the travelers on horseback.



CHAPTER V.

FATHER AND STEP-DAUGHTER.

It was on one of the first days of June. Clotilde had left early in the morning, fresh and radiant as the dawn. Two hours later, Lucan mounted his horse and started at a walk. The roads are lovely in Normandy at this season. The hawthorn hedges perfume the country, and sprinkle here and there the edges of the road with their rosy snow. A profusion of fresh verdure, dotted with wild flowers, covers the face of the ditches. All that, under the gay morning sun, is a feast for the eyes. M. de Lucan, however, greatly contrary to his custom, bestowed but very slight attention upon the spectacle of that smiling nature. He was preoccupied, to a degree that surprised himself, with his coming meeting with his step-daughter. Julia had been such a besetting thought in his mind that he had retained of her an exaggerated impression. He strove in vain to restore her to her natural proportions, which were, after all, only those of a child, formerly a naughty child, now a prodigal child. He had become accustomed to invest her, in his imagination, with a mysterious importance and a sort of fatal power, of which he found it difficult to strip her. He laughed and felt irritated at his own weakness; but he experienced an agitation mingled with curiosity and vague uneasiness, at the moment of beholding face to face that sphinx whose shadow had so long disturbed his life, and who now came in person to sit at his fireside.

An open barouche, decked with parasols, appeared at the summit of a hill; Lucan saw a head leaning and a handkerchief waving outside the carriage; he urged at once his horse to a gallop. Almost at the same instant the carriage stopped, and a young woman jumped lightly upon the road; she turned around to address a few words to her traveling-companions, and advanced alone toward Lucan. Not wishing to be outdone in politeness, he alighted also, handed his horse to the groom who followed him, and started with cheerful alacrity in the direction of the young woman, whom he did not recognize, but who was evidently Julia. She was coming toward him without haste, with a sliding walk, rocking gently her flexible figure. As she drew near, she threw off her vail with a rapid motion of her hand, and Lucan was enabled to find again upon that youthful face, in those large and slightly clouded eyes, and the pure and stretching arch of the eyebrows, some features of the child he had known.

When Julia's glance met that of Lucan, her pale complexion became suffused with a purple blush.

He bowed very low to her, and with a smile full of affectionate grace:

"Welcome!" he said.

"Thank you, sir," said Julia, in a voice whose grave and melodious suavity struck Lucan; "friends, are we not?" And she held out both her hands to him with charming resolution.

He drew her gently to himself to kiss her; but thinking that he felt a slight resistance in the suddenly stiffening arms of his step-daughter, he contented himself with kissing her wrist just above her glove. Then affecting to look at her with a polite admiration, which, however, was perfectly sincere:

"I really feel," he said, laughingly, "like asking you to whom I have the honor of speaking."

"You find me grown?" she said, showing her dazzling teeth.

"Surprisingly so," said Lucan; "most surprisingly. I understand Pierre perfectly now."

"Poor Pierre!" said Julia; "he is so fond of you. Don't let us keep him waiting any longer, if you please."

They started in the direction of the carriage, in front of which Monsieur de Moras was awaiting them, and while walking side by side:

"What a lovely country!" resumed Julia. "And the sea quite near?"

"Quite near."

"We'll take a ride on horseback after breakfast, will we not?"

"Quite willingly; but you must be horribly fatigued, my dear child. Excuse me! my dear—? By the way, how do you wish me to call you?"

"Call me madam. I was such a bad child!"

And she broke forth into a roll of that sudden, graceful, but somewhat equivocal laughter that was habitual with her. Then raising her voice:

"You may come, Pierre; your friend is my friend now!"

She left the two men shaking hands cordially, and exchanging the usual greetings, jumped into the carriage, and resuming her seat at her mother's side:

"Mother," she said, kissing her at the same time, "the meeting came off very well—didn't it, Monsieur de Lucan?"

"Very well, indeed," said Lucan, laughingly, "except some minor details."

"Oh! you are too hard to please, sir!" said Julia, drawing her wrappings around her.

The next moment Monsieur de Lucan was cantering by the carriage door, while the three travelers inside were indulging in one of those expansive talks that usually follow the happy solution of a dreaded crisis. Clotilde, henceforth in the full possession of all her affections, was fairly soaring in the ethereal blue.

"You are too handsome, mother," said Julia. "With such a big girl as I am, it is a positive crime!"

And she kissed her again.

Lucan, while participating in the conversation and doing to Julia the honors of the landscape, was trying to sum up within himself his impressions of the ceremony which had just taken place. Upon the whole he thought, as did his step-daughter, that it had come off very well, although it was not quite perfection. Perfection would have been to find in Julia a plain and unaffected woman, who would have simply thrown herself in her step-father's arms and laughed with him at her spoilt child's escapade; but he had never expected Julia's manners to be quite as frank and open as that. She had done in the present circumstances all that could be expected of a nature like hers; she had shown herself graciously friendly; she had, it is true, imparted to this first interview a certain solemn and dramatic turn. She was romantic, and as Lucan was tolerably so himself, this whim of hers had not proved unpleasant to him.

He had been, moreover, agreeably surprised at the beauty of Madame de Moras, which was indeed striking. The severe regularity of her features, the deep luster of her blue eyes fringed with long black lashes, the exquisite harmony of her form were not her only, nor indeed her principal attractions; she owed her rare and personal charm to a sort of strange grace mingled with flexibility and strength, that lent enchantment to her every motion. She had in the play of her countenance, in her step, in her gestures, the sovereign ease of a woman who does not feel a single weak point in her beauty, and who moves, grows, and blossoms with all the freedom of a child in his cradle or a fallow deer in the forest. Made as she was, she had no difficulty in dressing well; the simplest costumes fitted her person with an elegant precision that caused the Baroness de Pers to say in her inaccurate though expressive language:

"A pair of kid gloves would be enough to dress her with."

During that same day and those that followed, Julia conquered new titles to Monsieur de Lucan's good graces, by manifesting a strong liking for the chateau of Vastville and the surrounding sites. The chateau pleased her for its romantic style, its old-fashioned garden ornamented with yews and evergreens, the lonely avenues of the park, and its melancholy woods scattered with ruins. She went into ecstasies at the sight of the vast heather plains lashed by the ocean winds, the trees with twisted and convulsive tops, the tall granite cliffs worn by the everlasting waves.

"All that," she said, laughingly, "has a great deal of character;" and as she had a great deal of it herself, she felt in her element. She had found the home of her dreams, she was happy.

Her mother, to whom she paid up in passionate effusions all arrearages of tenderness, was still more so.

The greater part of the day was spent riding about on horseback. After dinner, Julia, with that joyous and somewhat feverish spirit that animated her, related her travels, parodying in a good-natured manner her own enthusiasm and her husband's relative indifference in presence of the masterpieces of antique art. She illustrated these recollections with scenes of mimicry in which she displayed the skill of a fairy, the imagination of an artist, and sometimes the broad humor of a low comedian. In a turn of the hand, with a flower, a bit of silk, a sheet of paper, she composed a Neapolitan, Roman, or Sicilian head-dress. She performed scenes from ballets or operas, pushing back the train of her dress with a tragic sweep of her foot, and accentuating strongly the commonplace exclamations of Italian lyricism:

"Oh, Ciel! Crudel! Perfido! Oh, dio! Perdona!"

Or else, kneeling on an arm-chair, she imitated the voice and manner of a preacher she had heard in Rome, and who did not seem to have sufficiently edified her.

Through all these various performances she never lost a particle of her grace, and her most comical attitudes retained a certain elegance.

After all these frolics she would resume her expression of a listless queen. Beneath the charm of the life and prestige of this brilliant nature, Monsieur de Lucan readily forgave Julia the caprices and peculiarities of which she was lavishly prodigal, especially toward her step-father. She showed herself generally with him what she had been at the start; friendly and polite, with a shade of haughty irony; but she had strong inequalities of temper. Lucan surprised sometimes her gaze riveted upon him with a painful and almost fierce expression. One day she repelled with sullen rudeness the hand he offered to assist her in alighting from her horse or in climbing over a fence. She seemed to avoid every occasion of finding herself alone with him, and when she could not escape a tete-a-tete of a few moments, she manifested either restless irritation or mocking impertinence. Lucan fancied she reproached herself sometimes with belying too much her former sentiments, and that she thought she owed it to herself to give them from time to time a token of fidelity. He was grateful to her, however, for reserving for himself alone these equivocal manifestations, and for not troubling her mother with them. Upon the whole he attached but a slight importance to these symptoms. If there still was in the affectionate manifestations of his step-daughter something of a struggle and an effort, it was on the part of that haughty nature an excusable feature, a last resistance, which he flattered himself soon to remove by multiplying his delicate attentions toward her.

Some two weeks after Julia's arrival, there was a ball given by the Marchioness de Boisfresnay, in her chateau of Boisfresnay, which is situated two or three miles from Vastville. Monsieur and Madame de Lucan were on pleasant visiting-terms with the marchioness. They went to that ball with Julia and her husband, the gentlemen in the coupe, the ladies, on account of their dresses, occupying the carriage alone. Toward midnight, Clotilde took her husband aside, and pointing to her daughter, who was waltzing in the adjoining parlor with a naval officer:

"Hush! my dear," she said; "I have a frightful headache, and Pierre is fairly bored to death; but we have not the courage to take Julia away so early. Do you wish to make yourself very agreeable? You'll bring her home, and we will start now, Pierre and myself; we'll leave you the carriage."

"Very well, dear," said Lucan, "run off, then."

Clotilde and Monsieur de Moras slipped away at once.

A moment later Julia, cleaving her way scornfully through the throng that parted before her as before an angel of light, raised her superb brow and made a sign to Lucan.

"I don't see mother," she said.

Lucan informed her in a few words of the arrangement which had just been settled upon. A sudden flash darted across Julia's eyes; her brows became contracted; she shrugged her shoulders slightly without replying, and returned into the ball-room, waltzing through the crowd with the same tranquil insolence. She betook herself again to the arm of a naval officer, and seemed to enjoy whirling in all her splendor. And indeed her ball-dress added a strange luster to her beauty. Her shoulders and throat, emerging from her dress with a sort of chaste indifference, retained even in the animation of the dance the cold and lustrous purity of marble.

Lucan asked her to waltz with him; she hesitated, but having consulted her memory, she discovered that she had not yet exhausted the list of naval officers who had swooped down in squadrons upon that rich prey. At the end of an hour she got tired of being admired and called for the carriage. As she was draping herself in her wrappings in the vestibule, her step-father volunteered his services.

"No! I beg of you," she said, impatiently; "men don't know—don't know at all!"

Then she threw herself in the carriage with a wearied look. However, as the horses were starting:

"Smoke, sir," she said with a better grace.

Lucan thanked her for the permission, but without availing himself of it; then, while making all his little arrangements of neighborly comfort:

"You were remarkably handsome to-night, my dear child!" he said.

"Monsieur," said Julia, in a nonchalant but affirmative tone, "I forbid you to think me handsome, and I forbid you to call me 'my dear child!'"

"As you please," said Lucan. "Well, then, you are not handsome, you are not dear to me, and you are not a child."

"As for being a child, no!" she said, energetically.

She wound her vail around her head, crossed her arms over her bosom, and settled herself in her corner, where a stray moonbeam came occasionally to play over her whiteness.

"May I sleep?" she asked.

"Why, most certainly! Shall I close the window?"

"If you please. My flowers will not incommode you?"

"Not in the least."

After a pause:

"Monsieur de Lucan?" resumed Julia.

"Dear madam?"

"Do explain to me in what consist the usages of society; for there are things which I do not understand. Is it admissible—is it proper to allow a woman of my age and a gentleman of yours to return from a ball, tete-a-tete, at two o'clock in the morning?"

"But," said Lucan, not without a certain gravity, "I am not a gentleman; I am your mother's husband."

"Ah! that is true; of course, you are my mother's husband!" she said, emphasizing these words in a ringing voice, which caused Lucan to fear some explosion.

But, appearing to overcome a violent emotion, she went on in an almost cheerful tone:

"Yes, you are my mother's husband; and what is more, you are, according to my notion, a very bad husband for my mother."

"According to your notion!" said Lucan, quietly. "And why so?"

"Because you are not at all suited to her."

"Have you consulted your mother on that subject, my dear madam? It seems to me that she must be a better judge of it than yourself."

"I need not consult her. It is enough to see you both together. My mother is an angelic creature, whereas you;—no!"

"What am I, then?"

"A romantic, restless man—the very reverse, in fact. Sooner or later, you'll betray her."

"Never!" said Lucan, somewhat sternly.

"Are you quite sure of that, sir?" said Julia, riveting her gaze upon him from the depths of her hood.

"Dear madam," replied Monsieur de Lucan, "you were asking me, a moment since, to explain to you what was proper and what was improper; well, it is improper that we should take, you your mother, and I my wife, as the text for a jest of that kind, and consequently, it is proper that we should drop the subject."

She hushed, remained motionless and closed her eyes. In the course of a minute or two, Lucan saw a tear fall down her long eyelashes and roll over her cheek.

"Mon Dieu! my child," he said, "I have wounded your feelings! Allow me to tender you my sincere apologies."

"Keep your apologies to yourself!" she said, in a hoarse voice, opening her eyes wide at the same time. "I have no need of your apologies any more than of your lessons! Your lessons! What have I done to deserve such a humiliation? I cannot understand. What is there more innocent than my words, and what do you expect me to tell you? Is it my fault if I am here alone with you! if I am compelled to speak to you?—if I know not what to say? Why am I exposed to such things? Why ask me more than I can do? It is presuming too much on my strength! It is enough—it is a thousand times too much already—to be compelled to act such a comedy as I am compelled to act every day. God knows I am tired of it!"

Lucan found it difficult to overcome the painful surprise that had seized him.

"Julia," he said at last, "you were kind enough to tell me that we were friends; I believed you. Is it not true, then?"

"No!"

After launching that word with somber energy, she wrapped up her head and face in her hood and vail, and remained during the rest of the way plunged into a silence which Monsieur de Lucan did not attempt to disturb.



CHAPTER VI.

A DISILLUSION.

After a few hours of painful sleep, Monsieur de Lucan rose the next day, his brain laden with cares.

The resumption of hostilities, which had been clearly signified to him foreboded surely fresh troubles for his peace and fresh anguish for Clotilde's happiness. Was he, then, about returning to those odious agitations which had so long harassed his existence, and this time without any hopes of escape? How, indeed, was it possible not to despair of that untamable nature which age and reason, which so much attention and affection had left unmoved in her prejudices and her hatred? How was it possible to understand, and, above all, ever to overcome the quixotic sentiment, or rather the mania which had taken possession of that concentrated soul, and which was smoldering in it, ever ready to break forth in furious outbursts?

Clotilde and Julia had not yet made their appearance. Lucan went to take a walk in the garden, to breathe once more the peace of his beloved solitude, pending the anticipated storms. At the extremity of an alley of evergreens, he discovered the Count de Moras, his arm resting on the pedestal of an old statue, and his eyes fixed on the ground.

Monsieur de Moras had never been a dreamer, but since his arrival at the chateau, he had, on more than one occasion, manifested to Lucan a melancholy state of mind quite foreign to his natural disposition. Lucan had felt alarmed; nevertheless, as he did not himself like any one to intrude upon his confidence, he had abstained from questioning him.

They shook hands as they met.

"You came home late last night?" inquired the count.

"At about three o'clock."

"Oh! povero! Apropos, thanks for your kindness to Julia. How did she behave to you?"

"Why—well enough," said Lucan—"a little peculiar, as usual."

"Oh! peculiar of course!"

He smiled rather sadly, took Monsieur de Lucan's arm, and leading him through the meandering paths of the garden:

"Voyons, mon cher," he said in a suppressed voice, "between you and me, what is Julia?"

"How, my friend?"

"Yes, what sort of a woman is my wife? If you know, do tell me, I beg of you."

"Excuse me, but it is the very question I would like to ask of you myself."

"Of me?" said the count. "But I have not the slightest idea. She is a Sphinx, a riddle, the solution of which escapes me completely. She both charms and frightens me. She is peculiar, you said? She is more than that; she is fantastic. She is not of this world. I know not whom or what I have married. You remember that cold and beautiful creature in the Arabian tales who rose at night to go and feast in the graveyard. It's absurd, but she reminds me of that."

The count's troubled look, the constrained laugh with which he accompanied his words, moved Lucan deeply.

"So, then," said the latter, "you are unhappy?"

"It is impossible to be more so," replied the count, pressing his hand hard. "I adore her, and I am jealous—without knowing of whom and of what! She does not love me—and yet she loves some one—she must love some one! How can I doubt it? Look at her; she is the very embodiment of passion; the fire of passion overflows in her words, in her looks, in the blood of her veins! And near me, she is as cold as the statue upon a tomb!"

"Frankly, mon cher," said Lucan, "you seem to exaggerate your disasters greatly. In reality they seem to amount to very little. In the first place, you are seriously in love for the first time in your life, I think; you had heard a great deal said about love, about passion, and perhaps you were expecting of them excessive wonders. In the second place, I must beg you to observe that very young women are rarely very passionate. The sort of coolness of which you complain is therefore quite easy to explain without the intervention of anything supernatural. Young women, I repeat, are generally idealists; their love has no substance. You ask of whom or of what you should be jealous? Be jealous, then, of all those vague and romantic aspirations that torment youthful imaginations; be jealous of the wind, of the tempest, of the barren moors, of the rugged cliffs, of my old manor, of my words and of my ruins—for Julia adores all that. Be jealous, above all, of that ardent worship she has avowed to her father's memory, and which still absorbs her—I have lately had a proof of the fact—the keenest of her passion."

"You do me good," rejoined Pierre de Moras, breathing more freely, "and yet I had already thought of all these things. But if she does not love now, she will some day—and suppose it should not be me! Were she to bestow upon another all that she refuses me! my friend," added the count, whose handsome features turned pale, "I would kill her with my own hand!"

"So much for being in love," said Lucan; "and I, am I nothing more to you, then?"

"You, my friend," said Moras with emotion, "you see my confidence in you! I have revealed to you weaknesses of which I am ashamed. Ah! why have I ever known any other feeling than that of friendship! Friendship alone returns as much as it receives; it fortifies instead of enervating; it is the only passion worthy of a man. Never forsake me, my friend; you will console me, whatever may happen."

The bell that was ringing for breakfast called them back to the chateau. Julia pretended being tired and ailing. Under shelter of this pretext, her silent humor, her more than dry answers to Lucan's polite questions, passed at first without awakening either her mother's or her husband's attention; but during the remainder of the day, and amid the various incidents of family life, Julia's aggressive tone and disagreeable manners toward Lucan became too strongly marked not to be noticed. However, as Lucan had the patience and good taste not to seem to notice them, each one kept his own impressions to himself. The dinner was, that day, more quiet than usual. The conversation fell, toward the end of the meal, upon extremely delicate ground, and it was Julia who brought it there, though, however, without the least thought of evil. She was exhausting her mocking verve upon a little boy of eight or ten—the son of the Marchioness de Boisfresnay—who had annoyed her extremely the night before, by parading through the ball his own pretentious little person, and by throwing himself pleasantly like a top between the legs of the gentlemen and through the dresses of the ladies. The marchioness went into ecstasies at these charming pranks. Clotilde defended her mildly, alleging that this child was her only son.

"That is no reason for bestowing upon society one scoundrel the more," said Lucan.

"However," rejoined Julia, who hastened to be no longer of her own opinion as soon as her step-father seemed to have rallied to it, "it is a well acknowledged fact that spoiled children are those who turn out the best."

"There are at least some exceptions," said Lucan, coldly.

"I know of none," said Julia.

"Mon Dieu!" said the Count de Moras in a tone of conciliation, "right or wrong, it is quite the fashion, nowadays, to spoil children."

"It is a criminal fashion," said Lucan. "Formerly their parents whipped them, and thus made men of them."

"When a man has such a disposition as that," said Julia, "he does not deserve to have any children—and he has none!" she added with a direct look that further aggravated the unkind and even cruel intention of her words.

Monsieur de Lucan turned very pale. Clotilde's eyes filled with tears. Julia, embarrassed at her triumph, left the room. Her mother, after remaining for a few moments, her face covered with her hands, rose from the table and went to join her.

"Now, mon cher," said Monsieur de Moras as soon as he found himself alone with Lucan, "what the mischief took place between you two last night? You did tell me something about it this morning, but I was so much absorbed in my own selfish preoccupations, that I paid no attention to it. But tell me, what did take place between you?"

"Nothing serious. Only I was able to satisfy myself that she had not yet forgiven my occupying a place which, according to her ideas, should never have been filled."

"What would you advise me to do, George?" rejoined Monsieur de Moras. "I am ready to do whatever you say.

"My dear friend," said Lucan, laying gently his hands upon Pierre's shoulders, "don't be offended, but life in common, under such conditions, becomes a very difficult matter. It is best not to wait until some irreparable scene. In Paris we will be able to see each other without difficulty. I advise you to take her away."

"Suppose she is not willing."

"I should speak firmly," said Lucan, looking him straight in the eyes; "I have some work to do this evening; it happens well and will give you a good opportunity. In the meantime, au revoir."

Monsieur de Lucan locked himself up in his library. An hour later, Clotilde came to join him.

He could see that she had wept a great deal; but she held out her forehead to him with her sweetest smile. While he was kissing her, she murmured simply and in a whisper:

"Forgive her for my sake!"

And the charming creature withdrew in haste to hide her emotions.

The next morning, Monsieur de Lucan, who, as usual, had risen quite early, had been writing for some time near the library window, which opened at quite a moderate height on the garden. He was not a little surprised to see his step-daughter's face appear among the honeysuckle vines that crept over the iron trellis of the balcony:

"Monsieur," she said in her most melodious tone, "are you very busy?"

"Oh, not at all!" he replied, rising at the same time.

"It's because, you see, the weather is perfectly delightful," she said. "Will you come and take a walk with me?"

"Of course I will."

"Well, come then. Good Heavens! how sweet this honeysuckle does smell!"

And she snatched off a few flowers, which she threw to Lucan through the window, with a burst of laughter. He fastened them in his button-hole, making the gesture of a man who understands nothing of what is going on, but who has no reason to be angry.

He found her in fresh morning costume, stamping upon the sand with her light and impatient foot.

"Monsieur de Lucan," she cries, gayly, "my mother wishes me to be amiable with you, my husband wishes it, Heaven wills it, too, I suppose; that's why I am willing also, and I assure you that I can be very amiable when I try. You'll see!"

"Is it possible?" said Lucan.

"You'll see, sir!" she replied, dropping him with all possible grace, a regular stage curtsey.

"And where are we going, pray, madam?"

"Wherever you like—through the woods, at random, if you please."

The wooded hills came so close to the chateau, that they bordered with a fringe of shade one side of the yard. Monsieur de Lucan and Julia took the first path that came in their way; but it was not long before Julia left the beaten road-way, to walk at hazard from tree to tree, wandering at random, beating the thickets with her cane, picking flowers or leaves, stopping in ecstasy before the luminous bands that striped here and there the mossy carpets, frankly intoxicated with movement, open air, sunshine, and youth. While walking, she cast to her companion words of pleasant fellowship, playful interpellation, childish jests, and caused the woods to ring again with the melody of her laughter.

In her admiration for the wild flowers, she had gradually collected a regular bundle, of which Monsieur de Lucan accepted the burden with cheerful resignation. Noticing that he was almost bending under the weight, she sat down upon the gnarled roots of an old oak, in order, she said, to make a selection among all this pell-mell. She then took upon her lap the bundles of grass and flowers, and began throwing out everything that appeared to her of inferior quality. She handed over to Lucan, seated a step or two from her, whatever she thought fit to retain for the final bouquet, justifying gravely her decision upon each plant that she examined:

"You, my dear, you are too thin! you're pretty, but too short! you, you smell bad! you, you look stupid."

Then, turning abruptly into another train of thought, which was not at first without causing some uneasiness to Monsieur de Lucan:

"It was you, wasn't it, who advised Pierre to speak to me with firmness?"

"I?" said Lucan, "what an idea!"

"It must have been you. You," she went on again, speaking to her flowers, "you look sickly, good-night! Yes, it must have been you. One might think you quite meek, to look at you, whereas, on the contrary, you are very harsh, very tyrannical."

"Ferocious!" said Lucan.

"At any rate, I have no fault to find with you for that. You were right; poor Pierre is too weak with me. I like a man to be a man. And yet he is very brave, is he not?"

"Extremely so," said Lucan; "he is capable of the most energetic actions."

"He looks like it, and yet with me—he is an angel."

"It is because he loves you."

"Quite probable!—some of those flowers are so curious. Look at this one; it looks like a little lady!"

"I hope that you love him too, my good Pierre?"

"Quite probable, too!"

After a pause, she shook her head:

"And why should I love him?"

"What a question!" said Lucan. "Why, because he is perfectly worthy of being loved; because he has every quality; intelligence, heart, and even beauty—finally, because you have married him."

"Monsieur de Lucan, will you allow me to tell you something confidentially?"

"I beg you to do so."

"That trip to Italy has been very injurious to me."

"In what way?"

"Before my marriage, I did not think myself positively ugly, but I fancied myself at least quite plain."

"Yes! Well?"

"Well! while traveling about Italy, among all those souvenirs and those marbles, so much admired, I made strange reflections. I said to myself that, after all, these princesses and goddesses of the ancient world, who drove shepherds and kings mad, for whose sake wars broke out and sacrileges were committed, were persons pretty much after my own style. Then occurred to me the fatal idea of my own beauty! I felt that I disposed of an exceptional power; that I was a sacred object that could not be given away for a vulgar trifle, and which could only be the reward—how can I say?—of a great deed or of a crime!"

Lucan remained for a moment astonished at the audacious naivete of that language. He thought best, however, to laugh at it.

"But, my dear Julia," he said, "take care; you mistake the age. We are no longer in the days when nations went to war for the sake of a woman's pretty eyes. However, speak about it to Pierre; he has everything required to furnish the great action you want. As to the crime, I think you had better give it up."

"Do you think so?" said Julia. "What a pity!" she added, bursting out into a hearty laugh. "You see, I tell you all the nonsense that comes in my head. That's amiable enough, I hope, is it not?"

"It is certainly extremely amiable," said Lucan. "Keep on."

"With such precious encouragement, sir!" she said, rising and finishing her sentence with a courtesy; "but for the present, let us go to breakfast. I recommend my bouquet to your attention. Hold the head down. Walk ahead, sir, and by the shortest road, if you please, for I have an appetite that is bringing tears to my eyes."

Lucan took the path that led most directly to the chateau. She followed him with nimble step, at times humming a cavatina, at others addressing him fresh instructions as to the manner of holding her bouquet, or touching him lightly with the end of her cane, to make him admire some birds perched upon a branch.

Clotilde and Monsieur de Moras were waiting for them, seated upon a bench outside the gate of the chateau. The anxiety depicted upon their countenances vanished at the sound of Julia's laughing voice.

As soon as she saw them, she snatched the bouquet from Lucan's hands, ran toward Clotilde, and throwing on her lap her fragrant harvest:

"Mother," she said, "we have had a delightful walk—I had a great deal of fun; Monsieur de Lucan also, and what's more, he has improved very much by my conversation, I opened up new horizons to him!"

She described with her hand a great curve in the air, to indicate the immensity of the horizons she had opened up to Monsieur de Lucan. Then, drawing her mother toward the dining-room, and snuffing the air with apparent relish:

"Oh! that kitchen of my mother's!" she said. "What an aroma!"

This charming humor, which was a source of great rejoicing to all the guests of the chateau, never flagged during that entire day, and, most unexpected of all, it continued during the next and the following days without perceptible change. If Julia did still nurture any remnants of her moody cares, she had at least the kindness of keeping them to herself, and to suffer alone. More than once, still, she was seen returning from her solitary excursions with gloomy eye and clouded brow; but she shook off these equivocal dispositions as soon as she found herself again in the family circle, and was all amiability.

Toward Monsieur de Lucan particularly she showed herself most agreeable; feeling, probably, that she had many amends to make in that direction. She went so far as to take up a great deal of his time without much discretion, and to call him a little too often in requisition for walks or rides, for tapestry drawings, for playing duets with her, sometimes for nothing, simply to disturb him, standing in front of his windows, and asking him, in the midst of his reading, all sorts of burlesque questions. All this was charming; Monsieur de Lucan lent himself to it with the utmost good nature, and did not surely deserve great credit for doing so.

About this time, the Baroness de Pers came to spend three days with her daughter. She was at once advised, with full particulars, of the miraculous change that had taken place in Julia's character, and of her behavior toward her step-father. On witnessing the gracious attentions which she lavished upon Monsieur de Lucan, Madame de Pers manifested the liveliest satisfaction, in the midst of which, however, could be seen at times some slight traces of her former prejudices against her grand-daughter.

The day before the expected departure of the baroness, some of the neighbors were invited to dinner for her gratification, for she had but very little taste for the intimacy of family life, and was passionately fond of strangers. For want of time to do any better, they gave her for company, the cure of Vastville, the local physician, the receiver of taxes, and recorder of deeds, all of whom were tolerably frequent guests at the chateau, and great admirers of Julia. It was doubtless not a great deal; it was enough, however, to furnish to the baroness an occasion for wearing one of her handsome dinner-dresses.

Julia, during the dinner, seemed to make it a point to effect the conquest of the cure, a simple old man, who yielded to his fair neighbor's fascinations with a sort of joyous stupor. She made him eat, she made him drink, she made him laugh.

"What a little serpent she is, isn't she, Monsieur le Cure?" said the baroness.

"She is very lovely," said the cure.

"Enough to make one shudder," rejoined the baroness.

In the evening, after waltzing for a little while around the room, Julia, accompanied by her husband, sang in her beautiful, grave voice, some unpublished melodies and national songs she had brought back from Italy. One of these tunes having reminded her of a sort of tarentella she had seen danced by some women at Procida, she requested her husband to play it. She was explaining at the same time, with much animation, how this tarentella was danced, giving a rapid outline of the steps, the gestures and the attitudes; then, suddenly carried away by the ardor of her narrative:

"Wait a moment, Pierre," she said, "I am going to dance it. That will be much more simple."

She lifted the long train of her dress, which impeded her movements, and requested her mother to loop it up with pins. In the meantime she was right busy herself; there were on the mantel-piece, and on the consoles, vases filled with flowers and verdure; she drew freely from them with her nimble fingers, and, standing before a mirror, she fastened and twined pell-mell, in her magnificent hair, flowers, leaves, bunches, ears, anything that happened to fall under her hands. With her head loaded with that heavy and quivering wreath, she came to place herself in the center of the parlor.

"Go on now, dear!" she said to Monsieur de Moras. He played the tarentella, that began with a sort of slow and measured ballet-step, which Julia performed in her own masterly style, folding and unfolding in turn, like two garlands, her peri's arms; then the rhythm becoming more and more animated, she struck the floor with her rapid and repeated steps, with the wild suppleness and the wanton smile of a young bacchante. Suddenly she brought the performance to a close with a long slide that carried her, all panting, before Monsieur de Lucan, seated opposite to her. There, she bent one knee, lay with rapid gesture both her hands upon her hair, and tossing about at the same time her inclined head, she shook off her crown in a shower of flowers at the feet of Lucan, saying in her sweetest voice, and in a tone of gracious homage:

"There! sir!"

After which, she rose, and, still sliding, made her way to an arm-chair, into which she threw herself, and taking up the cure's three-cornered hat, she began to fan herself vigorously with it.

In the midst of the applause and the laughter that filled the parlor, the Baroness de Pers drew gently nearer to Lucan on the sofa which they were jointly occupying, and said to him in a whisper:

"Tell me, my dear sir, what in the world is the meaning of this new system? Do you know that I still preferred the old style myself?"

"How, dear madam? And why so?" said Lucan simply.

But before the baroness had time to explain, admitting that such was her intention, Julia was taken with another fancy.

"Really," she said, "I am smothering here. Monsieur de Lucan, do offer me your arm."

She went out, and Lucan followed her. She stopped in the vestibule to cover her head with her great white vail, seemed to hesitate between the door that led into the garden and that which led into the yard, and then deciding:

"To the Ladies' Walk," she said; "it's coolest there."

"The Ladies' Walk," which was Julia's favorite strolling resort, opened opposite the avenue, on the other side of the court-yard. It was a gently sloping path contrived between the rocky base of the wooded hill and the banks of a ravine that seemed to have been one of the moats of the old castle. A brook flowed at the bottom of this ravine with a melancholy murmur; it became merged, a little farther off, into a small lake shaded by willows, and guarded by two old marble nymphs, to which the Ladies' Walk was indebted for its name, consecrated by the local tradition. Half-way between the yard and the pond, fragments of wall and broken arches, the evident remnants of some outer fortification, rose against the hill-side; for the space of a few paces, these ruins bordered the path with their heavy buttresses, and projected into it, together with festoons of ivy and briar, a mass of shade which night changed into densest darkness. It looked then as if the passage was broken by an abyss. The gloomy character of this site was not, however, without some mitigating features; the path was strewn with fine, dry sand; rustic benches stood against the bluff; finally, the grassy banks that sloped down into the ravine were dotted with hyacinths, violets, and dwarf roses whose perfume rose and lingered in that shaded alley like the odor of incense in a church.

It was then about the end of July, and the heat had been overpowering during the day. After leaving the atmosphere of the court-yard, still aglow with the fires of the setting sun, Julia breathed eagerly the cool air of the woods and of the brook.

"Dieu! how delightful this is!" she said.

"But I am afraid this may be a little too delightful," said Lucan; "allow me."

And he wound up in a double fold round her neck the floating ends of her vail.

"What! do you value my life, then?" she said.

"Most undoubtedly."

"That's magnanimous!"

She walked a few steps in silence, resting lightly upon the arm of her companion, and rocking, in her peculiar way, her graceful figure.

"Your good cure must take me for a species of demon," she added.

"He is not the only one," said Lucan, with ironical coldness.

She laughed a short and constrained laugh; then, after another pause, and while continuing to walk with downcast eyes:

"You must certainly hate me a little less now; say, don't you?"

"A little less."

"Be serious, will you? I know that I have made you suffer a great deal. Are you beginning to forgive me now?"

Her voice had assumed an accent of tenderness quite unusual to it, and which touched Monsieur de Lucan.

"I forgive you with all my heart, my child," he replied.

She stopped, and grasping his two hands:

"True? We will not hate each other any more?" she said, in a low and apparently timid tone. "You love me a little?"

"Thank you," said Lucan, with grave emotion; "thank you; I love you very much."

As she was drawing him gently toward her he clasped her in a frank and affectionate embrace, and pressed his lips upon the forehead she was holding up to him; but at the same instant he felt her supple figure stiffen; her head rolled back; then she sank bodily, and slipped in his arms like a flower whose stem has suddenly been mowed down.