CHAPTER IX.

A CHALLENGE AND DUEL.

THE MARQUIS DE MALOUET TO PAUL B----, PARIS.

CHATEAU DE MALOUET. _October 20_.

Monsieur:--It has become my imperative though painful duty to relate to

you the facts which have brought about the crowning disaster of which you

have already been advised, by more rapid means and with such precautions

as we were able to take; a disaster that completely overwhelms our souls

already so cruelly tried. As you are aware, sir, a few weeks, a few days

had been sufficient to enable Madame de Malouet and myself to know and

appreciate your friend, to conceive for him an eternal affection soon,

alas! to be changed into eternal regret. You are also aware, I know, of

all the sad circumstances that preceded and led to this sad catastrophe.

Monsieur George's conduct during the melancholy days that followed the

death of Madame de Palme, the depth of feeling as well as the elevation of

soul which he constantly manifested had completely won our hearts over to

him. I desired to send him back to you at once, sir; I wished to get him

away from this sorrowful spot, I wished to take him to you myself, since a

painful preoccupation detained you in Paris; but he had imposed upon

himself the duty of not forsaking so soon what was left of the unhappy

woman.

We had removed him to our house; we were surrounding him with attentions.

He never left the chateau, except to go each day on a pious pilgrimage

within a few steps. Still, his health was perceptibly failing. Day before

yesterday morning, Madame de Malouet pressed him to join Monsieur de

Breuilly and myself in a horseback ride. He consented, though somewhat

reluctantly. We started. On the way, he strove manfully to respond to the

efforts we were making to draw him into conversation and rouse him from

his prostration. I saw him smile for the first time in many hours, and I

began to hope that time, the strength of his soul, the attentions of

friendship, might restore some calm to his memory, when, at a turn in the

road, a deplorable chance brought us face to face with Monsieur de

Mauterne.

This gentleman was on horseback; two friends and two ladies made up his

party. We were following the same direction, but his gait was much more

rapid than ours; he passed us, saluting as he did so, and I noticed, so

far as I am concerned, nothing in his manner that could attract attention.

I was therefore much surprised to hear M. de Breuilly the next moment

murmur between his teeth: "That is an infamous trick!" Monsieur George,

who, at the moment of meeting, had become pale and turned his head

slightly away, looked sharply at Monsieur de Breuilly:

"What do you mean, sir? What do you refer to?"

"I refer to the impertinence of that brainless fool!"

I appealed energetically to Monsieur de Breuilly, reproaching him with his

quarrelsome disposition, and affirming that there had been no trace of

defiance either in the attitude or the features of Monsieur de Mauterne

when he had passed by us.

"Come, my friend," said Monsieur de Breuilly, "your eyes must have been

closed--or else you must have seen, as I saw myself, that the wretch

giggled as he looked at our friend. I don't know why you should wish the

gentleman to suffer an insult which neither you nor I would suffer!"

These unlucky words had been scarcely uttered, when Monsieur George

started his horse at a gallop.

"Are you mad?" I said to De Breuilly, who was trying to detain me; "and

what means such an invention?"

"My friend," he replied, "it was necessary to divert that boy's mind at

any cost."

I shrugged my shoulders. I freed myself from him and dashed after Monsieur

George; but, being better mounted than myself, he had already gained

considerable advance. I was still a hundred paces behind him when he

overtook Monsieur de Mauterne, who had stopped on hearing him coming. It

seemed to me that they were exchanging a few words, and almost at once I

saw Monsieur George's whip lashing several times, and with a sort of fury,

Monsieur de Mauterne's face. We barely arrived in time, Monsieur de

Breuilly and myself, to prevent that scene from assuming an odious

character of brutality.

A meeting having unfortunately become inevitable between the parties, we

took with us the two friends who accompanied Mauterne, Messieurs de

Quiroy and Astley, the latter an Englishman. Monsieur George had preceded

us to the chateau. The choice of weapons belonged without any possible

doubt to our adversary. Nevertheless, having noticed that his seconds

seemed to hesitate with a sort of indifference, or perhaps of

circumspection between swords and pistols, I thought that we might, with a

little good management, influence their decisions in the direction least

unfavorable to us. We went, therefore, Monsieur de Breuilly and I, to

consult Monsieur George on the subject. He pronounced at once in favor of

swords.

"But," remarked Monsieur de Breuilly, "you are a very good pistol-shot. I

have seen you at work. Are you certain to be a better swordsman? Do not

deceive yourself; this will be a mortal combat."

"I am satisfied of that," he replied, with a smile; "but I am particularly

anxious for swords, if at all possible."

After the expression of so formal a wish, we could but esteem ourselves

fortunate in obtaining the choice of arms, and the meeting was settled for

the next morning at nine o'clock.

During the remainder of the day, Monsieur George manifested an ease of

mind, and even at intervals a certain gayety, at which we were quite

surprised, and which Madame de Malouet, in particular, was at a loss to

understand. My poor wife of course had been left in ignorance of these

recent events.

At ten o'clock he retired, and I could still see a light through his

window two hours later. Impelled by my earnest affection and I know not

what vague anxiety was haunting me, I entered his room at about midnight;

I found him very calm; he had been writing and was just sealing up a few

envelopes.

"There!" he said, handing me the papers. "Now the worst is over, and I am

going to sleep the sleep of the just."

I thought it best to offer him a few more technical suggestions on the

handling of the weapon he was soon to use. He listened to me without much

attention, and suddenly extending his arm:

"Feel my pulse," he said.

I did so, and ascertained that his calm and his cheerfulness were neither

affected nor feverish.

"In such a condition," he added, "if a man is killed it is because he is

willing to be. Good-night, my dear sir!" Whereupon I left him.

Yesterday morning, at half-past eight, we repaired, Monsieur George,

Monsieur de Breuilly, and myself, to an unfrequented path situated about

half way between Mauterne and Malouet, and which had been selected for the

dueling-ground. Our adversary arrived almost immediately after,

accompanied by Messieurs de Quiroy and Astley. The nature of the insult

admitted of no attempt at conciliation. We had therefore to proceed at

once to the fight.

Scarcely had Monsieur George placed himself in position, when we became

convinced of his complete inexperience in the use of the sword. Monsieur

de Breuilly cast upon me a look of stupor. However, after the blades had

been crossed, there was a semblance of fight and of defense; but at the

third pass, Monsieur George fell pierced through the chest.

I threw myself upon him; he was already in the grasp of death.

Nevertheless he pressed my hand feebly, smiled once more, then gave vent,

with his last breath, to his last thought, which was for you, sir:

"Tell Paul that I love him, that I forbid him seeking to avenge me, and

that I die--happy." He expired.

I shall not attempt, sir, to add anything to this narrative. It has

already been too long and too painful to me; but I deemed this faithful

and minute account due to you. I had reason to believe, besides, that your

friendship would like to follow to the last instant that existence which

was so justly dear to you. Now you know all, you have understood all, even

what I have left unsaid.

He lies in peace by her side. You will doubtless come, dear sir. We expect

you. We shall mingle our tears over those two beloved beings, both kind

and charming, both crushed by passion and seized by death with relentless

rapidity in the midst of the pleasantest scenes of life.

[THE END.]

THE SPHINX;

OR,

"JULIA DE TRECOEUR."

CHAPTER I.

"A BALEFUL AFFECTION."

All those who, like ourselves, knew Raoul de Trecoeur during his early

youth, believed that he was destined to great fame. He had received quite

remarkable gifts from nature; there are left from him two or three

sketches and a few hundred verses that promised a master; but he was very

rich, and had been very badly brought up; he soon gave himself up to

dilettanteism. A perfect stranger, like most men of his generation, to the

sentiment of duty, he permitted himself to be recklessly carried away by

his instincts, which, fortunately for others, were more ardent than

hurtful. Therefore was he generally pitied when he died, in the flower of

his age, for having loved and enjoyed immoderately everything that he

thought pleasant.

The poor fellow, they said, never did any harm but to himself; which, in

point of fact, was not the exact truth. Trecoeur had married, at the age

of twenty-five, his cousin, Clotilde Andree de Pers, a modest and graceful

person who had of the world nothing but its elegance. Madame de Trecoeur

had lived with her husband in an atmosphere of unhealthy storms, where she

felt out of place, and, as it were, degraded. He tormented her with his

remorse almost as much as he did with his faults. He looked upon her, and

justly, as an angel, and wept at her feet when he had betrayed her,

lamenting that he was unworthy of her; that he was the victim of his

temperament, and that he had been born in a faithless age. He threatened

once to kill himself in his wife's boudoir if she did not forgive him; she

forgave him, of course. All this dramatic action disturbed Clotilde in her

resigned existence. She would have preferred that her misery should have

been more quiet and less declamatory.

All the friends of her husband had been in love with her, and had built

great hopes upon her forlorn condition, but unfaithful husbands do not

always make guilty wives. The reverse is rather more frequently the case,

so little is this poor world submitted to the rules of logic. In short,

Madame de Trecoeur, after her husband's death was left forlorn, exhausted,

and broken down, but spotless.

From this melancholy union, a daughter had been born, named Julia, and

whom her father, notwithstanding all Clotilde's efforts of resistance, had

spoilt to excess. Monsieur de Trecoeur's idolatry for his daughter was

well-known, and the world, with its habitual weakness of judgment, forgave

him readily his scandalous existence in consideration of that merit, which

is not always a great one. It is not, indeed, a very difficult matter to

love one's children; it is sufficient for that not to be a monster. The

love that one has for them is not in itself a virtue; it is a passion

which, like all others, may be good or bad, as one is its master or its

slave. It may even be thought that there is no passion which may be more

than this one, pregnant with good or with evil.

Julia seemed splendidly gifted; but her ardent and precocious disposition

had been developed, thanks to the paternal education, as in the primeval

forest, wholly at random. She was small in person, dark and pale, lithe

and slender, with large blue eyes full of fire, unruly black hair, and

superbly arched eyebrows. Her habitual air was reserved and haughty;

nevertheless she laid aside, at home, these majestic appearances to frolic

on the carpet. She played games of her own invention. She translated her

history lessons into little dramas interspersed with speeches to the

people, dialogues, music, and particularly chariot-races. In spite of her

serious countenance, she could be very funny at times, and made cruel fun

of those she did not like.

She manifested for her father a passionate predilection, singularly

mitigated by the sentiments of tender pity which her mother's unhappiness

inspired in her youthful heart. She saw her weep often; she would then

throw herself upon the floor, curled up at her feet, and there remain for

hours, motionless and dumb, looking at her with moist eyes, and drinking

from time to time a tear from her cheek.

She had apparently caught, as many children do, some echoes of the

domestic woes. Doubtless her quick intellect appreciated her father's

wrong-doings; but her father--that handsome gentleman, so witty, generous,

and wild--she worshiped him; she was proud to be his daughter; she

palpitated with joy when he clasped her to his heart. She could neither

judge him nor blame him; he was a superior being. She contented herself

with pitying and consoling, as best she could, that gentle and charming

creature who was her mother, and who suffered.

Within the circle of Madame de Trecoeur's acquaintances, Julia simply

passed for a little plague. The dear madames, as she called them, who

formed the ornament of her mother's Thursdays, related with bitterness to

each other the scenes of comical imitation with which the child followed

their entrance and their departure. The men considered themselves

fortunate when they did not carry off a bit of paper or silk on the back

of their coats. All this amused Monsieur de Trecoeur extremely. When his

daughter performed with half a dozen chairs some of those Olympian races

that knocked every piano in the neighborhood out of tune--

"Julia!" he would exclaim, "you don't make noise enough. Smash a vase."

And a vase she did smash; whereupon her father kissed her with enthusiasm.

This method of education assumed a graver character as the child grew

older. Her father's affection became shaded with a species of gallantry.

He took her with him to the Bois, to the races, to the theater. She had

not a fancy that he did not anticipate and gratify. At thirteen years of

age, she had her horse, her groom, and a carriage bearing her monogram.

Already ill, and having perhaps a presentiment of his death, the

unfortunate man overwhelmed that beloved daughter with the tokens of his

baleful affection. He was thus blunting all her tastes by too precocious

satiety, as if he had intended to leave her no taste save for the

forbidden fruit.

Julia wept over him with furious transports, and preserved for his memory

a fervid worship. She had a private room which she filled with the

portraits of her father and with a thousand personal souvenirs, around

which she kept up flowers.

Madame de Trecoeur, like the greater number of young girls who marry their

cousins, had married very young. She was left a widow at twenty-eight, and

her mother, the Baroness de Pers, who was still living, and who was even

of the liveliest, was not long in suggesting discreetly to her the

propriety of a second marriage. After having exhausted the practical and,

in fact, quite sensible reasons that seemed to urge that course, the

baroness then came down to the sentimental reasons:

"In good faith, my poor child," she said, "you have not had, up too this

time, your just share of happiness in this world. I would not speak ill of

your husband, since he is dead; but, _entre nous_, he was a horrid brute.

Mon Dieu! charming at times, I grant you,--since I have been caught

myself--like all worthless scamps! but in fact, beastly, beastly! Well,

certainly, I shall not undertake to say that marriage is ever a state of

perfect bliss; nevertheless it is the best thing that has been imagined up

to this time, to enjoy life decently among respectable people. You are in

the flower of your age--you are quite good-looking, quite--and, by the

way, it will do you no harm to wear your skirts a little higher up behind,

with a proper sort of bustle; for you don't even know what they wear now,

my poor pet. Here, look! It's horrible, I know; but what can we do? we

must not attract attention. In short, what I meant to tell you is that you

still have all that is necessary, and even more than is necessary, to fix

a husband--if indeed there are any that can be fixed, which I hope is the

case--otherwise, we should have to despair wholly of Providence, if it did

not have some compensation in store for us after all our trials. It is

already a manifest sign of its kindness that you should have recovered

your _embonpoint_, my darling! Kiss your mother. Come, now, when is our

pretty little woman going to be married?"

There was no maternal exaggeration whatever in the compliments which the

baroness was addressing to Clotilde. All Paris looked upon her with the

same eyes as her mother. She had never been so attractive as now, and she

had always been infinitely so. Her person, reposed in the peace of her

mourning, had then the bright lustre of a fine fruit, ripe and fresh. Her

black eyes full of timid tenderness, her pure brow crowned with splendid

and life-like braids, her shoulders of rosy marble, her particular grace

of a young matron, at once handsome, loving, and chaste--all that, joined

to a spotless reputation and to sixty thousand francs a year, could not

fail to bring forward more than one pretender. And indeed they sprang up

in legions. Reason, and public opinion itself, which had done full justice

to her husband and to herself, were both urging her to a second wedding.

Her own private feelings, whatever might be their natural delicacy, did

not seem likely to prove an obstacle, for there was nothing in her heart

that was not true. She had been faithful to her husband, she had shed

sincere and bitter tears over that wretched companion of her youth; but he

had exhausted and worn out her affection, and without ever joining her

mother in her posthumous recriminations against Monsieur de Trecoeur, she

felt that she had no further duty to fulfill toward him but that of

prayer.

She had, however, been for many months a widow, and she still continued to

oppose to the solicitations of the baroness, a resistance of which the

latter sought in vain to ascertain the mysterious cause. One day she

fancied she had discovered it.

"Confess the truth," she said to her; "you are afraid to cause some

annoyance to Julia. Now, if that is so, my dear daughter, it is pure

folly. You cannot have any serious scruple on that score. Julia will be

very rich in her own right, and will have no need of your fortune. She

will herself marry in three or four years (much pleasure do I wish her

husband, by the way!); and see a little in what a nice situation you will

find yourself then! But, mon Dieu! are we never going to be done with

them? After the father, here is the daughter now! Eh! mon Dieu! let her

erect chapels with her father's portraits and spurs as much as she

likes--that's her business; I am certainly not the one to enter into

competition with her. But she must at least allow us to live in peace!

What! You could not dispose of your person without her leave! Then if you

are her slave, my dear child, show me the door at once! You could not do

anything more agreeable to her for she cannot bear the sight of me, your

daughter! And then, after all, in all candor, what possible objection can

she have to your getting married again? A step-father is not a

step-mother; it's quite another thing. Eh! mon Dieu! her step-father will

be charming to her--all men will be charming to her; I predict her that;

she may feel easy about it! Now, will you admit that it is the true cause

of your hesitation?"

"I assure you that it is not, mother," said Clotilde.

"I assure you that it is, my daughter. Well, come; would you like me to

speak to Julia, to try and reason with her? I would prefer giving her a

good whipping; however--!"

"Poor, dear mother," rejoined Clotilde, "must I then tell you everything?"

She came to kneel down in front of the baroness.

"By all means, daughter; tell me everything, but don't make me cry, I beg

of you! Is what you have to tell very sad?"

"Not very gay."

"Mon Dieu! But no matter; go on."

"In the first place, mother, I must confess that I would personally feel

no scruple in marrying again--"

"I should think not! That would be carrying it just a little too far!"

"As to Julia--whom I adore, who loves me sincerely, and who loves you very

much too, whatever you may say--"

"Satisfied of the contrary," said the baroness. "But no matter; proceed."

"As to Julia, I have more confidence than you have in her good sense and

in her good heart; notwithstanding the exalted affection she has preserved

for her father, I am sure that she would understand, that she would

respect my determination, and that she would not love me one whit the

less, especially if her step-father did not happen to be personally

objectionable to her; for you are aware of the extreme violence of her

sympathies and of her antipathies--"

"I am aware of it!" said the baroness, bitterly. "Well, you must give her

a list of your gentlemen friends, the dear little thing, and she will pick

out her own choice for you."

"There is no need of that, good mother," said Clotilde. "The choice has

already been made by the mainly interested party, and I am certain that it

would not be disagreeable to Julia."

"Well, then, my darling, everything is for the best."

"Alas! no. I am going to tell you something that covers me with confusion.

Among all the men we know, the only one who--the only one I like, in fact,

is also the only one who has never been in love with me."

"He must be a savage, then! he cannot but be a savage. But who is he?"

"I have told you, dear mother, the only one of our friends who is not in

love with me--"

"Bah! who is that? Your cousin Pierre?"

"No, but you are not--"

"Monsieur de Lucan!" exclaimed the baroness. "It could not fail to be so!

The very flower of the flock! Mon Dieu, my darling, how very similar our

tastes are, both of us! He is charming, your Lucan, he is charming. Kiss

me, dear--don't look any farther, don't look any farther; he is positively

just the man for us."

"But, mother, since he does not want me!"

"Good! he does not want you now! What nonsense! what do you know about it?

Did you ask him? Besides, it is impossible, my darling; you were made for

each other in all eternity. He is charming, _distingue_, well-bred, rich,

intelligent, everything, in a word--everything."

"Everything, mother, except in love with me."

The baroness exclaiming anew against such a very unlikely thing, Clotilde

exposed to her eyes a series of facts and particulars which left no room

for illusions. The dismayed mother was compelled to resign herself to the

painful conviction that there really was in the world a man of

sufficiently bad taste not to be in love with her daughter, and that this

man unfortunately was Monsieur de Lucan.

She returned slowly to her residence, meditating on the way upon that

strange mystery the explanation of which, however, she was not long to

wait.

CHAPTER II.

TWO FAST FRIENDS.

George-Rene de Lucan was an intimate friend of the Count Pierre de

Moras, Clotilde's cousin. They had been companions in boyhood, in youth,

in travels, and even in battle; for, chance having led them to the United

States at the outbreak of the war of the rebellion, they had deemed it a

favorable opportunity to receive the baptism of fire. Their friendship had

become still more sternly tempered in the midst of these dangers of

warfare sustained fraternally far from their own country. That friendship

had had, moreover, for a long time, a character of rare confidence,

delicacy, and strength. They entertained the highest esteem for each

other, and their mutual confidence was not misplaced. They, however, bore

no resemblance whatever to each other. Pierre de Moras was of tall

stature, blonde as a Scandinavian, handsome and strong as a lion, but as a

good-natured lion. Lucan was dark, slender, elegant and grave. There was

in his cold and gentle accent, in his very bearing, a certain grace

mingled with authority, that was both imposing and charming.

They were not less dissimilar in a moral point of view; the former a jolly

companion, an absolute and settled skeptic, the careless possessor of a

danseuse; the latter always agitated despite his outer calm, romantic,

passionate, tormented with love and theology. Pierre de Moras, on their

return from America, had presented Lucan to his cousin Clotilde, and from

that moment there were at least two points upon which they agreed

perfectly; profound esteem for Clotilde, and deep-seated antipathy for her

husband.

They appreciated, however, each in his own way, Monsieur de Trecoeur's

character and conduct. For the Count Pierre, Trecoeur was simply a

mischievous being; in Monsieur de Lucan's eyes, he was a criminal.

"Why criminal?" Pierre said. "Is it his fault if he was born with the

eternal flames on the marrow of his bones? I admit that I feel quite

disposed to break his head when I see Clotilde's eyes red; but I would

not feel any more angry about it, than if I were crushing a serpent under

my heel. Since it is his nature, the poor man can't help it."

"That little system of yours would simply suppress all merit, all will,

all liberty; in a word, the whole moral world. If we are not the masters

of our own passions, at least to a great extent, and if, on the contrary,

it is our passions that fatally control us; if a man is necessarily good

or bad, honest or a knave, loyal or a traitor, at the mercy of his

instincts, tell me, if you please, why you honor me with your esteem and

your friendship? I have no right to them any more than any one else, any

more than Trecoeur himself."

"I beg your pardon, my friend," said Pierre gravely; "in the vegetable

world I prefer a rose to a thistle; in the moral world, I prefer you to

Trecoeur. You were born a gallant fellow; I rejoice at it, and I make the

best of it."

"Well, _mon cher_, you are laboring under a complete mistake," rejoined

Lucan. "I was born, on the contrary, with the most detestable instincts,

with the germ of all vices."

"Like Socrates?"

"Like Socrates, exactly. And if my father had not chastised me in time, if

my mother had not been a saint, finally, if I had not myself placed, with

the utmost energy, my will at the service of my conscience, I would be

to-day, a faithless and lawless scoundrel."

"But nothing proves that you will not turn out a scoundrel one of these

days, my dear friend. There is no one but may become a scoundrel at the

proper time. Everything depends upon the extent and strength of the

temptation. Whatever may be your instinct of honor and dignity, are you

yourself quite sure never to meet with a temptation sufficiently powerful

to overcome your principles? Can you not conceive, for instance, some

circumstance in which you might love a woman enough to commit a crime?"

"No," said Lucan; "do you?"

"I!--I deserve no credit. I have no passions. It is extremely mortifying,

but I have none. I was born to be an exemplary man. You remember my

childhood; I was a little model. Now I am a big model, that's all the

difference--and it does not cost me any effort whatever. Shall we go and

see Clotilde?"

"Let us go!"

And they went to Clotilde's, very worthy herself of the friendship of

these two excellent fellows.

There they were received with marked consideration, even by Mademoiselle

Julia, who seemed to feel, to a certain degree, the prestige of these

superior natures. Both had, moreover, in their manners and language an

elegant correctness that apparently satisfied the child's delicate taste

and her artistic instincts.

During the early period of her mourning, Julia's disposition had assumed a

somewhat shy and somber cast; when her mother received visitors, she left

the parlor abruptly, and went to lock herself up in her own room, not,

however, without manifesting toward the indiscreet guests a haughty

displeasure. Cousin Pierre and his friend had alone the privilege of a

kindly greeting; she even deigned to leave her apartment and come and join

them at her mother's side when she knew that they were there.

Clotilde had therefore good reasons to believe that her preference for

Monsieur de Lucan would obtain her daughter's approbation; she

unfortunately had better ones still to doubt that Monsieur de Lucan's

disposition corresponded with her own. Not only, indeed, had he always

maintained toward her the terms of the most reserved friendship, but,

since she had been a widow, that reserve had become perceptibly

aggravated. Lucan's visits became fewer and briefer; he even seemed to

take particular care in avoiding all occasions of finding himself alone

with Clotilde, as if he had penetrated her secret feelings, and had

affected to discourage them. Such were the sadly significant symptoms

which Clotilde had communicated in confidence to her mother.

On the very day when the baroness was receiving this unpleasant

information at the residence of her daughter, a conversation was taking

place upon the same subject between the Count de Moras and George de

Lucan, in the latter's apartment. They had taken together, during the

forenoon a ride through the Bois, and Lucan had shown himself even more

silent than usual. At the moment of parting:

"_Apropos_, Pierre," he said, "I am tired of Paris; I am going to travel."

"Going to travel! Where on earth?"

"I am going to Sweden. I have always wished to see Sweden."

"What a singular thing! Will you be gone long?"

"Two or three months."

"When do you expect to leave?"

"To-morrow."

"Alone?"

"Entirely so. I'll see you again at the club, to-night, won't I?"

The strange reserve of this dialogue left upon the mind of Monsieur de

Moras an impression of surprise and uneasiness. He was unable to withstand

the feeling, and two hours later he returned to Lucan's. As he went in,

preparations for traveling greeted his eyes on all sides. Lucan was

engaged writing in his study.

"Now, my dear fellow!" said the count to him, "if I am impertinent, say so

frankly and at once; but this sudden and hurried voyage doesn't look like

anything. Seriously, what is the matter? Are you going to fight a duel

outside the frontier?":

"Bah! In that case I should take you with me; you know that very well."

"A woman, then?"

"Yes," said Lucan dryly.

"Excuse my importunity, and good-by."

"I have wounded your feelings, dear friend?" said Lucan, detaining him.

"Yes," said the count, "I certainly do not pretend to enter into your

secrets; but I do not absolutely understand the tone of restraint, and

almost of hostility, in which you are answering me on the subject of this

journey. It is not, moreover, the first symptoms of that nature that

strike and grieve me; for some time past, I find you visibly embarrassed

in your intercourse with me; it seems as though I were in your way and my

friendship were a burden to you, and the cruel idea has occurred to my

mind that this journey is merely a way of putting an end to it."

"Mon Dieu!" murmured Lucan. "Well, then," he went on with evident

agitation in his voice, "I must tell you the whole truth; I hoped that you

would have guessed it--it is so simple. Your cousin, Clotilde, has now

been a widow for nearly two years; that, I believe, is the term

consecrated by custom to the mourning of a husband. I am aware of your

feelings toward her; you may now marry her, and you will be perfectly

right in doing so. Nothing seems to me more just, more natural, more

worthy of her and of yourself. I beg to assure you that my friendship for

you shall remain faithful and entire, but I trust you will not object to

my keeping away for a short time. That's all."

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: