conceived a deep distrust of the airy
smile and studied gallantry of Victor Colonne. She took counsel with
matrons old and circumspect as herself; made herself acquainted with
Victor's history; watched his looks, listened to his words narrowly and
scrutinisingly; and, day by day, felt more and more strongly that she
liked him not--that there was mischief in his restless eye and soft
musical voice. She communicated her fears to Julia, told her the history
of her suitor, and bade her be on her guard. Julia was startled and
distressed. These suspicions checked the brightness and little glory of
her life, and settled wanly and hazily on her soul, like damp breath on
a mirror. But they served as points of departure for daily thoughts.
Looks and words were watched, and weighed, and pondered over with
wistful studiousness; and while Victor believed his conquest to be
achieved, his increasing assurance and gradual abandonment of disguise
were alienating him from the object of his pursuit. Julia had
accompanied him on different occasions to the chateau; been presented to
his father; and had been seen, admired, and kindly spoken to by the
Comtesse Meurien and her daughters. Victor had lost no opportunity of
strengthening his suit by stimulating her ambition and pride; but it was
without avail. Though pleased for a time, she soon discovered that he
was cold, heartless, and even dissolute. The intimacy betwixt them was
fast relapsing into indifference, and, on her side, into dislike, when a
certain _denouement_ of Master Victor's notorious love-makings,
accompanied by disgraceful circumstances, determined her to put an end
to it, once and for all.

'So you are determined?' exclaimed he with ill-restrained anger, as she
repeated her resolve to him for the fourth or fifth time.

'Yes: I will have nothing more to say to you,' replied she firmly.

'Then my father and his reverence the cure may lose all hopes of me!'
returned he bitterly. 'I have done much ill--I own it: I have won no
one's esteem: I have been idle, irregular, profligate. But wherefore?
Because I have had no one to care for me. Since my mother died, I have
been left to myself, with no kind hand to guide me, no kind tongue to
warn me: what wonder that youth should go astray?'

'No one to care for you!' exclaimed Julia, not without a tinge of
sarcasm. 'Do not your father and monsieur the cure do their utmost for
you?'

'The one reproves, and the other prays for me,'