ulated caress, the horror
of a loveless kiss, of the heart's apostasy followed by dolorous
prostitution. She despised herself; she cursed marriage. She could have
longed for death; perhaps if it had not been for a cry from her child,
she would have sprung from the window and dashed herself upon the
pavement. M. d'Aiglemont slept on peacefully at her side; his wife's hot
dropping tears did not waken him.

But next morning Julie could be gay. She made a great effort to look
happy, to hide, not her melancholy, as heretofore, but an insuperable
loathing. From that day she no longer regarded herself as a blameless
wife. Had she not been false to herself? Why should she not play a
double part in the future, and display astounding depths of cunning in
deceiving her husband? In her there lay a hitherto undiscovered latent
depravity, lacking only opportunity, and her marriage was the cause.

Even now she had asked herself why she should struggle with love, when,
with her heart and her whole nature in revolt, she gave herself to the
husband whom she loved no longer. Perhaps, who knows? some piece of
fallacious reasoning, some bit of special pleading, lies at the root of
all sins, of all crimes. How shall society exist unless every
individual of which it is composed will make the necessary sacrifices
of inclination demanded by its laws? If you accept the benefits of
civilized society, do you not by implication engage to observe the
conditions, the conditions of its very existence? And yet, starving
wretches, compelled to respect the laws of property, are not less to be
pitied than women whose natural instincts and sensitiveness are turned
to so many avenues of pain.

A few days after that scene of which the secret lay buried in the
midnight couch, d'Aiglemont introduced Lord Grenville. Julie gave the
guest a stiffly polite reception, which did credit to her powers of
dissimulation. Resolutely she silenced her heart, veiled her eyes,
steadied her voice, and she kept her future in her own hands. Then, when
by these devices, this innate woman-craft, as it may be called, she
had discovered the full extent of the love which she inspired, Mme.
d'Aiglemont welcomed the hope of a speedy cure, and no longer opposed
her husband, who pressed her to accept the young doctor's offer. Yet she
declined to trust herself with Lord Grenville until after some further
study of his words and manner, she could feel certain that he had
sufficient gene