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.
There was a bench within two steps; he carried her there, but after laying
her upon it, instead of affording her the required assistance, he remained
in an attitude of strange immobility before that lovely and helpless form.
A long silence followed, broken only by the gentle and monotonous ripple
of the brook. Shaking off his stupor at last, Monsieur de Lucan called out
several times in a loud and almost harsh voice:
"Julia! Julia!"
As she remained motionless still, he ran down into the ravine, took some
water in the hollow of his hand, and bathed her temples with it. In the
course of a minute or two, he saw her eyes opening in the darkness, and he
helped her raise her head.
"What is it?" she said, looking at him with a wild expression; "what has
happened, sir?"
"Why, you fainted," said Lucan, laughing.
"Fainted?" repeated Julia.
"Of course; that's just what I feared; you must have been benumbed by the
cold. Can you walk? Come, try."
"Perfectly well," she said, rising and taking his arm.
Like all those who experience sudden prostration, Julia remembered, but in
a very indistinct manner, the circumstance that had brought about her
fainting.
In the meantime they had resumed their walk slowly in the direction of the
chateau.
"Fainted!" she repeated, gayly; "mon Dieu! how perfectly ridiculous!"
Then, with sudden animation:
"But what did I say? Did I speak at all?"
"You said, 'I am cold!' and away you went!"
"Just like that?"
"Just like that."
"Did you think I was dead?"
"I did hope for a moment that you were," said Lucan, coldly.
"How horrid of you! But we were talking before that. What were we saying?"
"We were making a pact of amity and friendship."
"Well! it doesn't look much like it now, Monsieur de Lucan!"
"Madam?"
"You seem positively angry with me because I fainted."
"Of course I am. In the first place, I don't like that sort of adventures,
and then, it is wholly your own fault; you are so imprudent, so
unreasonable!"
"Oh! mon Dieu! Don't you want a switch?"
And as the lights of the chateau were coming into sight:
"_Apropos_, don't trouble mother with any of that nonsense, will you?"
"Certainly not; you may rest easy on that score."
"You are just as cross as you can be, you know?"
"Probably I am; but I have just spent there a few minutes so very
painful."
"I pity you with all my heart," said Julia, dryly.
She threw off her vail in the vestibule, and returned to the parlor.
The Baroness de Pers, who was to leave early the next day, had already
retired. Julia performed some four-handed pieces on the piano with her
mother. Monsieur de Lucan took the place of the "dummy" at the whist
table, and the evening ended quietly.
CHAPTER VII.
VICTORY AND DEFEAT.
The next morning, Clotilde was preparing to accompany her mother to the
station in the carriage; Monsieur de Lucan, detained at the chateau by a
business appointment, was present to take leave of his mother-in-law. He
remarked the thoughtful countenance of the baroness; she was silent, much
against her habit, and she cast embarrassed looks upon him; she approached
him several times with a constrained smile and confidential manner, but
confined herself to addressing to him a few commonplace words. Availing
herself at last of a moment when Clotilde was giving some orders, she
leaned out of the carriage-window, and, pressing significantly Monsieur de
Lucan's hand:
"Be true and faithful to her, sir!" she said.
The carriage started almost immediately, but not before he had had time to
notice that her eyes were filled with tears.
The matter that was engrossing Monsieur de Lucan's attention at the time,
and on the subject of which he had had a long conversation that very
morning with his lawyer and his advocate, who had come over from Caen
during the night, was an old family law-suit which the mayor of Vastville,
an ambitious personage and restless busy-body, had taken pride in bringing
to light again. The question at issue was a claim for some public property
the effect of which would have been to strip Monsieur de Lucan of a
portion of his timbered lands and to curtail materially his patrimonial
estate. He had gained his suit in the lower court, but an appeal was soon
to be heard, and he was not without fears as to the final result. He had
no difficulty in using that pretext, to account during the next few days,
to the eyes of the inhabitants of the chateau, for a severity of
physiognomy, a briefness of language, and a fondness for solitude, which
concealed perhaps graver cares. That pretext, however, soon failed him. A
telegram informed him, early the following week, that the suit had been
finally decided in his favor, and he was compelled to manifest on this
occasion an apparent joy that was far indeed from his heart.
He resumed from that moment the usual routine of family life to which
Julia continued to impart the movement of her active imagination. However,
he ceased to lend himself with the same affectionate familiarity to the
caprices of his step-daughter. She noticed it; but she was not the only
one who did. Lucan detected surprise in the eyes of Monsieur de Moras,
reproaches in those of Clotilde. A new danger appeared before him; he was
acting in a manner which it was equally impossible, equally perilous to
explain or to allow being interpreted.
With time, however, the frightful light that had flashed across his brain
in a recent circumstance was growing gradually fainter; it had ceased to
fill his mind with the same convincing force. He conceived doubts; he
accused himself at times on a veritable aberration; he charged the
baroness with cruel and guilty prejudices; he thought, in a word, that, at
all events, the wisest course was to avoid believing in the drama, and
giving it life by taking a serious part in it. Unfortunately Julia's
disposition, full of surprises and unforeseen whims, scarcely admitted of
any regular plan of conduct toward her.
One beautiful afternoon, the guests of the chateau accompanied by a few of
the neighbors, had gone on a horseback excursion to the extremity of Cape
La Hague. On the return home, and when they had come about half-way,
Julia, who had been remarkably quiet all day, left the principal group of
riders, and, casting aside to Monsieur de Lucan an expressive glance, she
urged her horse slightly forward. He overtook her almost immediately. She
cast upon him again an oblique glance, and abruptly, with her bitterest
and most incisive accent:
"Is my presence dangerous to you, sir?"
"How, dangerous?" he said, laughingly. "I do not understand you, my dear
madam."
"Why do you avoid me? What have I done to you? What means this new and
disagreeable manner which you affect toward me? It is really a very
strange thing that you should become less polite to me, as I am more so to
you. They persecute one for years to induce me to show you a pleasant
countenance, and when I try my best to do so, you pout. What does it mean?
What has got into your head? I should be infinitely curious to know."
"It is quite simple, and I am going to enlighten you in two words. It has
got into my head that after being not very amiable to me, you are now
almost too much so. I am sincerely touched and charmed at it; but I really
fear, sometimes, to turn too much to my own profit attentions to which I
am far from having the sole right. You know how fond I am of your husband.
There can be no question of jealousy in this case, of course; but a man's
love is proud and prompt to take umbrage. Without stooping to low and
otherwise impossible sentiments, Pierre, seeing himself somewhat
neglected, might feel offended and afflicted, at which we would both be
greatly grieved, would we not?"
"I do not know how to do anything half-way," she said with a gesture of
impatience. "How can I change my nature? It is with my own heart, and not
with that of another, that I love and that I hate; and then, why should it
not enter into my plans to excite Pierre's jealousy? My old traditional
hatred for you has perhaps made this deep calculation; he would kill
either you or me, and that would be as good a denouement as any other."
"You must allow me to prefer another," said Lucan, still trying, but
without much success, to give a cheerful turn to this wildly passionate
conversation.
"However," she went on, "you may rest easy, my dear sir. Pierre is not
jealous. He suspects nothing, as they say in plays!"
She laughed one of her wicked laughs, and added at once in a graver tone:
"And what could he suspect? In being amiable toward you, I am merely
acting under order, and no one can tell how much of it is genuine and how
much put on."
"I feel quite certain that you don't know yourself," he said, laughingly.
"You are a person of naturally restless disposition; you require
agitation, and when there is none you try to imitate it as best as you
can. Whether you like, or whether you don't like your step-father, is not
a very dramatic affair. There is no room here for any but very simple and
very ordinary sentiments. It is well enough to complicate them a
little--is it not, my dear?"
"Yes, my dear!" she said, emphasizing ironically the last word.
Whereupon she started her horse at a gallop.
They were then just reaching the edge of the woods. He soon saw her leave
the direct road that led across them, and take a path over the heath as if
intending to dash through the thickest of the timber. At the same instant
Clotilde ran up to him, and touching his shoulder with the tip of her
whip:
"Where in the world is Julia going?" she said.
Lucan replied with a vague gesture and a smile.
"I am sure," rejoined Clotilde, "that she is going to drink at that
fountain, yonder. She was complaining a little while since of being
thirsty. Do follow her, dear, will you, and prevent her doing so. She is
so warm! It might be fatal to her. Run, I beg of you."
Monsieur de Lucan gave the reins to his horse, and he started like the
wind. Julia had already disappeared under cover of the woods. He followed
her track; but among the timber, the roots and the roughness of the ground
somewhat checked his speed. At a short distance, in the center of a narrow
clearing, the labor of ages and the filtrations of the soil had hollowed
out one of those mysterious fountains whose limpid water, moss-grown
banks, and aspect of deep solitude delight the imagination, and give rise
to so many poetic legends. When Monsieur de Lucan was able once more to
see Julia, she had alighted from her horse. The admirably trained animal
stood quietly two or three steps away, browsing the young foliage, while
his mistress, down on her knees and stooping over the edge of the spring,
was drinking from her hands.
"Julia, I beg of you!" exclaimed Monsieur de Lucan in an imploring tone.
She started to her feet with a sort of elastic spring, and greeted him
gayly.
"Too late, sir!" she said; "but I only drank a few drops, just a few
little wee drops, I assure you!"
"You must really be out of your mind!" said Lucan who was by this time
quite close to her.
"Do you think so?"
She was shaking her beautiful white hands, which had served her for a
drinking-cup, and which seemed to throw off a shower of diamonds.
"Give me your handkerchief!"
Lucan handed her his handkerchief. She wiped her hands gravely; then, as
she returned the handkerchief with her right hand, she raised herself on
tiptoe and held her left hand up to the level of his face:
"There! now; don't scold any more!"
Lucan kissed the hand.
"The other now," she said again. "Please don't turn so pale, sir!"
Monsieur Lucan affected not to have heard these last words, and came down
abruptly from his horse.
"I must help you to mount," he said, in a dry and harsh voice.
She was putting on her gloves with downcast look. Suddenly raising her
head and looking at him with fixed gaze:
"What a miserable wretch I am, am I not?" she said.
"No," said Lucan; "but what an unhappy being!"
She leaned against one of the trees that shaded the spring, her head
partially thrown back and one hand over her eyes.
"Come!" said Lucan.
She obeyed, and he assisted her to get on her horse. They rode out of the
wood without uttering another word, made their way to the road, and soon
overtook the cavalcade.
As soon as he had recovered from the anguish of that scene, Monsieur de
Lucan did not hesitate to think that the departure of Julia and of her
husband must be the immediate and inevitable consequence of it; but when
he came to seek some means of bringing about their sudden departure, his
mind became lost in difficulties that he could not solve. What motive
could he indeed offer to justify, in the eyes of Clotilde and of Monsieur
de Moras, a determination so novel and so unexpected? It was now the
middle of August, and it had been agreed for a long time that the entire
family should return to Paris on the first of September. The very
proximity of the time fixed upon for the general departure would only
serve to make the pretext invoked to explain this sudden separation appear
more unlikely. It was almost impossible that it should not awaken in the
mind of Clotilde, and in that of the count, irreparable suspicions and a
light fatal to the happiness of both. The remedy seemed indeed more to be
dreaded than the evil itself; for, if the evil was great, it was at least
unknown to those whose lives and whose hearts it would have shattered, and
it could still be hoped that it might remain so forever. Monsieur de Lucan
thought for a moment of going away himself; but it was still more
impossible to justify his departure than it was that of Julia's.
All these reflections being made, he resolved to arm himself with patience
and courage. Once in Paris, separate dwellings, less frequent intercourse,
the obligations of the world, and the activity of life, would doubtless
afford relief and then a peaceful solution to a painful and formidable
situation which it was henceforth impossible for him not to view in its
true light. He relied upon himself, and also upon Julia's natural
generosity, for reaching without outburst and without rupture the
approaching term that was to put an end to their life in common and to its
incessant perils. It ought not to be impossible to endure, for the short
period of two weeks more, the threatenings of a storm that had been
brewing for months without revealing its lightning. He was forgetting with
what frightful rapidity the maladies of the soul, as well as those of the
body, after reaching slowly and gradually certain stages, suddenly
precipitate their progress and their ravages.
Monsieur de Lucan asked himself whether he should not inform Julia of the
conduct he had resolved to follow, and of the reasons that had dictated
it; but every shadow of an explanation between them appeared to him
eminently improper and dangerous. Their confidential understanding upon
such a subject would have assumed an air of complicity which was repugnant
to all his sentiments of honor. Despite the terrible light that had
flashed forth, there still remained between them something obscure,
undecided, and unconfessed that he thought best to preserve at any cost.
Far, therefore, from seeking opportunities for some private interview, he
avoided them all from that moment with scrupulous care. Julia seemed
penetrated with the same feeling of reserve, and anxious to the same
degree as himself to avoid any tete-a-tete, while striving to save
appearances; but in that respect she did not dispose of that power of
dissimulation which Lucan owed to his natural and acquired firmness. He
was able, without visible effort, to hide under his habitual air of
gravity the anxieties that consumed him. Julia did not succeed, without an
almost convulsive restraint, in carrying with bold and smiling countenance
the burden of her thought. To the only witness who knew the secret of her
struggles, it was a poignant spectacle to behold the gracious and feverish
animation of which the unhappy child sustained the appearance with so much
difficulty. He saw her sometimes at a distance, like an exhausted
comedienne, retiring to some isolated bench in the garden, and fairly
panting with her hand pressing upon her bosom, as if to keep down her
rebellious heart. He felt then, in spite of all, overcome with immense
pity in presence of so much beauty and so much misery.
Was it only pity?
The attitude, the words, the looks of Clotilde and of Julia's husband were
at the same time, for Monsieur de Lucan, the objects of constant and
uneasy observation. Clotilde had evidently not conceived the slightest
alarm. The gentle serenity of her features remained unaltered. A few
oddities, more or less, in Julia's ways did not constitute a sufficient
novelty to attract her particular attention. Her mind, moreover, was too
far away from the monstrous abysses yawning at her side; she might have
stepped into them and been swallowed up, before she had suspected their
existence.
The blonde, placid, and handsome countenance of the Count de Moras
retained at all times, like Lucan's dark face, a sort of sculptural
firmness. It was, therefore, rather difficult to read upon it the
impressions of a soul which was naturally strong and self-controlling. On
one point, however, that soul had become weak. Monsieur de Lucan was not
ignorant of the fact; he was aware of the count's ardent love for Julia,
and of the sickly susceptibility of his passion.
It seemed unlikely that such a sentiment, if it were seriously set at
defiance, should not betray itself in some violent or at least perceptible
exterior sign. Monsieur de Lucan, in reality, was unable to observe any of
these dreaded symptoms. If he did occasionally surprise a fugitive wrinkle
on his brow, a doubtful intonation, a fugitive or absent glance, he might
believe at most in some return of that vague and chimerical jealousy with
which he knew the count to have been long tormented. Besides, he saw him
carrying into their family circle the same impassive and smiling face, and
he continued to receive from him the same tokens of cordiality. Oppressed,
nevertheless by his legitimate scruples of loyalty and friendship, he had
for one moment the mad temptation of revealing to the count the trial that
was imposed upon them; but while revealing his own heart, would not such a
delicate and cruel confession break the heart of his friend? And,
moreover, would not such a pretended act of loyalty, involving the
betrayal of a woman's secret, be tainted with cowardice and treason?
It was necessary, therefore, amid so many dangers and so much anxiety, to
sustain alone, and to the end, the weight of that trial, more complicated
and more perilous still, perhaps, than Monsieur de Lucan was willing to
admit to himself.
It was to come to an end much sooner than he could possibly have
anticipated.
Clotilde and her husband, accompanied by Monsieur and Madame de Moras,
went one day, in the carriage, to visit the ruins of a covered gallery
which is one of the rarest of druidical antiquities in the country. These
ruins lay at the back of a picturesque little bay, scooped out in the
rocky wall that borders the eastern shore of the peninsula. Their
shapeless masses are strewn over one of those grass-clad spurs that extend
here and there to the foot of the cliff like giant buttresses. They are
reached, despite the steepness of the hill, by an easy winding road that
leads, with long, meandering turns, down to the yellow, sandy beach of the
little bay. Clotilde and Julia made a sketch of the old Celtic temple
while the gentlemen were smoking; then they amused themselves for some
time watching the rising waves spreading upon the sand its fringes of
foam. It was agreed to return to the top of the hill on foot in order to
relieve the horses.
The carriage, on a sign from Lucan, started ahead. Clotilde took the arm
of Monsieur de Moras, and they began ascending slowly the sinuous road.
Lucan was waiting Julia's good pleasure before following them; she had
remained a few steps aside, engaged in animated conversation with an old
fisherman who was busy setting his bait in the hollow of the rocks. She
turned toward Lucan, and slightly raising her voice:
"He says there is another path, much shorter and quite easy, close by
here, along the face of the cliff. I am strongly inclined to take it and
avoid that tiresome road."
"Believe me, do nothing of the kind," said Lucan; "what is a very easy
path for the country people may prove a very arduous one for you and even
for me."
After further conference with the fisherman:
"He says," rejoined Julia, "that there is really no danger, and that
children go up and down that way every day. He is going to guide me to the
foot of the path, and then I'll only have to go straight up. Tell mother
I'll be up there as soon as you all are."
"Your mother will be dreadfully anxious."
"Tell her there is no danger."
Lucan, giving up the attempt to resist any longer a fancy that was growing
impatient, went up to the footman who carried Julia's album and shawl; he
requested him to reassure Clotilde and Monsieur de Moras, who had already
disappeared behind one of the angles of the road; then returned to Julia.
"Whenever you are ready," he said.
"You are coming with me?"
"As a matter of course."
The old fisherman preceded them, following close to the foot of the
cliffs. After leaving the sandy beach of the bay, the shore was covered
with angular rocks and gigantic fragments of granite that made walking
extremely painful. Although the distance was very short, they were already
breaking down with fatigue when they reached the entrance to the path,
which appeared to Lucan, and perhaps to Julia herself, much less safe and
commodious than the fisherman had pretended. Neither one nor the other,
however, attempted to make any objection. After a few last recommendations
and directions, their old guide withdrew, quite pleased with Lucan's
generosity. Both began then resolutely to scale the cliff which, at this
point of the coast, is known as the cliff of Jobourg, and rises some three
hundred feet above the level of the ocean.
At the beginning of this ascension, they broke the silence they had
hitherto maintained, in order to exchange some jesting remarks upon the
charms and comforts of this goat's-path; but the real and even alarming
difficulties of the road soon proved sufficient to absorb their entire
attention. The faintly beaten path disappeared at times on the barren
rock, or under some recent land-slide. They had much trouble finding the
broken thread again. Their feet hesitated upon the polished surface of the
stone, or the short and slippery grass. There were moments when they felt
as if they stood upon an almost vertical slope, and if they attempted to
stop and take breath, the vast spaces stretching before them, the
boundless extent, the dazzling and metallic brilliancy of the sea, caused
them a sensation of dizziness and as of a floating motion. Though the sky
was low and cloudy, a heavy and storm-laden heat weighed upon them and
stimulated the action of their blood. Lucan walked first, with a sort of
feverish excitement, turning around from time to time to cast a glance at
Julia, who followed him closely, then looking up to see some
resting-point, some platform upon which they might breathe for a moment in
safety. But above him, as below, there was naught save the perpendicular
and sometimes overhanging cliff. Suddenly Julia called out to him in a
tone of anguish:
"Monsieur! monsieur! please, oh! please--my head is whirling!"
He walked rapidly back a few steps at the risk of tumbling down, and,
grasping her hand energetically:
"Come! come!" he said, with a smile, "what is the matter?--a brave person
like you!"
"It would require wings!" she said, faintly.
Lucan began at once to climb the path again, supporting and almost
dragging Julia, who had nearly fainted.
He had at last the gratification of setting his foot upon a projection of
the ground, a sort of narrow esplanade jutting from the rock. He succeeded
in drawing Julia upon it. But she sank at once in his arms, and her head
rested upon his chest. He could hear her arteries and her heart throbbing
with frightful force. Then, gradually, her agitation subsided. She lifted
her head gently, opened her long eyelashes, and looking at him with
rapturous eyes:
"I am so happy!" she murmured; "I wish I could die so!"
Lucan pushed her off from him the length of his arm, then, suddenly
seizing her again and clasping her tightly to his heart, he cast upon her
a troubled glance, and then another upon the abyss. She certainly thought
they were about to die. A slight tremor passed across her lips; she
smiled; her head half rolled back:
"With you?" she said--"what happiness!"
At the same moment, the sound of voices was heard a short distance above
them. Lucan recognized Clotilde's and the count's voices. His arm suddenly
relaxed and dropped from Julia's waist. He pointed out to her, without
speaking, but with an imperious gesture, the path that wound around the
rock.
"Without you, then!" she said, in a gentle and proud tone. And she began
ascending.
Two minutes later, they reached the plateau above the cliff, and related
to Clotilde the perils of their ascension, which explained sufficiently
their evident agitation. At least they thought so.
During the evening of this same day, Julia, Monsieur de Moras, and
Clotilde were walking after dinner under the evergreens of the garden.
Monsieur de Lucan, after keeping them company for a short time, had just
retired, under pretense of writing some letters. He remained, however, but
a few minutes in the library, where the sound of the others' voices
reached his ears and disturbed his attention. A desire for absolute
solitude, for meditation, perhaps also some whimsical and unaccountable
feeling, led him to that very ladies' walk stamped for him with such an
indelible recollection.
He walked slowly through it for some time, in the deepening shades with
which the falling night was rapidly filling it. He wished to consult his
soul, as it were, face to face, to probe like a man his mind to its utmost
depths. What he discovered there terrified him. It was a mad intoxication,
which the savor of crime further heightened. Duty, loyalty, honor, all
that rose before his passion to oppose it only exasperated its fury. The
pagan Venus was gnawing at his heart, and instilling her most subtle
poisons into it. The image of the fatal beauty was there without truce,
present in his burning brain, before his dazzled eyes; he inhaled with
avidity and in spite of himself, its languor, its perfume, its breath.
The sound of light footsteps upon the sand caused him to suspend his
march. He caught through the darkness a glimpse of a white form
approaching him.
It was she!
Without giving scarce a thought to the act, he threw himself behind the
obscure angle formed by one of those massive pillars that supported the
ruins against the side of the hill. A mass of verdure made the darkness
there more dense still. She went by, her eyes fixed upon the ground, with
her supple and rhythmical step. She walked as far as the little pond that
received the waters of the brook, stood dreaming for a few moments upon
its edge, and then returned. A second tune she went by the ruins, without
raising her eyes, and as if deeply absorbed. Lucan remained convinced that
she had not suspected his presence, when suddenly she turned her head
slightly around, without interrupting her march, and she cast behind her
that single word, "Farewell," in a tone so gentle, so musical, so
sorrowful, that it was somewhat like the sound of a tear falling upon a
sonorous crystal.
That minute was a supreme one. It was one of those moments during which a
man's life is decided for eternal good or for eternal evil. Monsieur de
Lucan felt it so. Had he yielded to the attraction of passion, of
intoxication, of pity, that was urging him with almost irresistible force
on the footsteps of that beautiful and unhappy woman--that was on the
point of casting him at her feet, upon her heart--he felt that he became
at once and forever a lost and desperate soul. Such a crime, were it even
to remain wholly ignored, separated him forever from all he had ever
respected, all he had ever held sacred and inviolate; there was nothing
left for him either upon earth or in heaven; there was no longer any
faith, probity, honor, friend, or God! The whole moral world vanished for
him in that single instant.
He accepted her farewell, and made no reply. The white form moved away and
soon disappeared in the darkness.
The evening was spent in the home circle as usual. Julia, pale, moody, and
haughty, worked silently at her tapestry. Lucan observed that on taking
leave of her mother she was kissing her with unusual effusion.
He soon retired also. Assailed by the most formidable apprehensions, he
did not undress. Toward morning only, he threw himself all dressed upon
the bed. It was about five o'clock, and scarcely daylight as yet, when he
fancied he heard muffled steps on the carpet, in the hall and on the
stairs. He rose again at once. The windows of his room opened upon the
court. He saw Julia cross it, dressed in riding costume. She went into the
stable and came out again after a few moments. A groom brought her her
horse, and assisted her in mounting. The man, accustomed to Julia's
somewhat eccentric manners, saw apparently nothing alarming in that fancy
for an early ride. Monsieur de Lucan, after a few minutes of excited
thought, took his resolution. He directed his steps toward the room of the
Count de Moras. To his extreme surprise, he found him up and dressed. The
count, seeing Lucan coming in, seemed struck with astonishment. He
fastened upon him a penetrating and visibly agitated look.
"What is the matter?" he said, at last, in a low and tremulous voice.
"Nothing serious, I hope," replied Lucan. "Nevertheless, I am uneasy.
Julia has just gone out on horseback. You have, doubtless, seen and heard
her as I have myself, since you are up."
"Yes," said Moras, who had continued to gaze upon Lucan with an expression
of indescribable stupor; "yes," he repeated, recovering himself, not
without difficulty, "and I am glad, really very glad to see you, my dear
friend."
While uttering these simple words, the voice of Moras became hesitating; a
damp cloud obscured his eyes.
"Where can she be going at this hour?" he resumed with his usual firmness
of speech.
"I do not know; merely some new fancy, I suppose. At any rate, she has
seemed to me lately more strange, more moody, and I feel uneasy. Let us
try and follow her, if you like."
"Let us go, my friend," said the count after a pause of singular
hesitation.
They both left the chateau together, taking their fowling-pieces with
them, in order to induce the belief that they were going, according to a
quite frequent habit, to shoot sea-birds. At the moment of selecting a
direction, Monsieur de Moras turned to Lucan with an inquiring glance.
"I see no danger," said Lucan, "save in the direction of the cliffs. A few
words that escaped her yesterday lead me to fear that the peril may be
there; but with her horse, she is compelled to make a long detour. By
cutting across the woods, we'll be there ahead of her."
They entered the timber to the west of the chateau, and walked in silence
and with rapid steps.
The path they had taken led them directly to the plateau overlooking the
cliffs they had visited the previous day. The woods extended in that
direction in an irregular triangle, the last trees of which almost touched
the very brink of the cliff.
As they were approaching with feverish steps that extreme point, Lucan
suddenly stopped.
"Listen!" he said.
The sound of a horse's gallop upon the hard soil could be distinctly
heard. They ran.
A sloping bank of moderate elevation divided the wood from the plateau.
This they climbed half way with the help of trailing branches; screened
then by the bushes and the foliage, they beheld before them a most
impressive spectacle. At a short distance to the left, Julia was coming on
at break-neck speed; she was following the oblique line of the woods,
apparently shaping her course straight toward the edge of the cliff. They
thought at first that her horse had run away, but they saw that she was
lashing him with her whip to further accelerate his speed.
She was still some hundred paces from the two men, and she was about
passing before them. Lucan was preparing to leap to the other side of the
bank, when the hand of Monsieur de Moras fell violently upon his arm and
held him back--firmly.
They looked at each other. Lucan was amazed at the profound alteration
that had suddenly contracted the count's features and sunken his eyes; he
read at the same time in his fixed gaze an immense sorrow, but also an
immovable resolve. He understood that there was no longer any secret
between them. He yielded to that glance, which, so far as he was
concerned--he felt sure of that--conveyed nothing but an expression of
confidence and friendly supplication. He grasped his friend's hand within
his own and remained motionless. The horse shot by within a few steps of
them, his flanks white with foam, while Julia, beautiful, graceful, and
charming still in that terrible moment, sat lightly upon the saddle.
Within a few feet of the edge of the cliff, the horse, scenting the
danger, shied violently and wheeled around in a semi-circle. She led him
back upon the plateau, and, urging him both with whip and voice, she
started him again toward the yawning chasm.
Lucan felt Monsieur de Moras' nails cutting into his flesh. At last the
horse was conquered; the ground gave way under his hind feet, which only
met the vacant space. He fell backward; his fore legs pawed the air
convulsively.
The next moment the plateau was empty. No sound had been heard. In that
deep chasm the fall had been noiseless and death instantaneous.
[THE END.]
THE STORY OF A FIGHT FOR A THRONE
D'Artagnan, the King Maker
By ALEXANDRE DUMAS.
Written originally by Dumas as a play, and now for the
first time novelized and translated into English.
_The Philadelphia Enquirer says_:
"A pretty love story in which the debonair
cavalier falls victim to Cupid's wiles is one
of the interesting threads running through
the book."
_The Chicago Record-Herald says_:
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for so long a time. D'Artagnan's manner
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12mo., Illustrated.
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A HERO OF THE SWORD.
The King's Gallant
By ALEXANDRE DUMAS.
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If this production is full of the rushing
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yet it was the stepping stone which led to
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THE STORY OF A HOPELESS LOVE.
Tons of Treasure
By WILLIAM HENRY BISHOP.
_Author of_ "DETMOLD."
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In quest of gold he visits Mexico and
there meets a dreamy-eyed maid who
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if one true woman's heart breaks before the
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book, but none more full of pathos than
when the woman who loves bares her soul
to the woman who is loved.
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A BOOK FULL OF 'HUMAN' INTEREST
QUEER PEOPLE
By WILLIAM HENRY BISHOP.
_Author of_ "DETMOLD."
Not one story, but a number of charming
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The promising boy and the fond patroness
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A PEEP BEHIND THE SCENES.
Among the Freaks
By W.L. ALDEN.
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A BOOK OF HEARTY LAUGHTER.
Things Generally
By MAX ADELER.
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"LAUGH OFT, AND DEFY THE DOCTOR."
Toothsome Tales Told in Slang
By BILLY BURGUNDY.
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Pronounced by press and public one of the
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EERIE TALES OF "CHINATOWN."
Bits of Broken China
By WILLIAM E.S. FALES
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THE GAME OF THE HOUR.
ABC OF BRIDGE
By ELEANOR A. TENNANT.
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but an hour's study of this clever little book
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THE CREAM OF JUVENILE FICTION
Boys' Own Library
A SELECTION OF THE BEST BOOKS WRITTEN
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not overburdened with lengthy descriptions
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deeds of heroism. Among the authors whose
names are included in Boys' Own Library
are Horatio Alger, Jr., Edward S. Ellis,
James Otis, Arthur M. Winfield and Frank
H. Converse.
Catalogues will gladly be sent, post free
on application.
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Attractive Covers.
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End of Project Gutenberg's Led Astray and The Sphinx, by Octave Feuillet