tened 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
go