child in his arms. He had
scrambled up on the balustrade by the chateau that little Helene might
jump down.

"Julie, I will not say a word of my love; we understand each other too
well. Deeply and carefully though I have hidden the pleasures of my
heart, you have shared them all, I feel it, I know it, I see it. And
now, at this moment, as I receive this delicious proof of the constant
sympathy of our hearts, I must go.... Cunning schemes for getting rid of
him have crossed my mind too often; the temptation might be irresistible
if I stayed with you."

"I had the same thought," she said, a look of pained surprise in her
troubled face.

Yet in her tone and involuntary shudder there was such virtue, such
certainty of herself, won in many a hard-fought battle with a love that
spoke in Julie's tones and involuntary gestures, that Lord Grenville
stood thrilled with admiration of her. The mere shadow of a crime had
been dispelled from that clear conscience. The religious sentiment
enthroned on the fair forehead could not but drive away the evil
thoughts that arise unbidden, engendered by our imperfect nature,
thoughts which make us aware of the grandeur and the perils of human
destiny.

"And then," she said, "I should have drawn down your scorn upon me,
and--I should have been saved," she added, and her eyes fell. "To be
lowered in your eyes, what is that but death?"

For a moment the two heroic lovers were silent, choking down their
sorrow. Good or ill, it seemed that their thoughts were loyally one,
and the joys in the depths of their heart were no more experiences apart
than the pain which they strove most anxiously to hide.

"I have no right to complain," she said after a while, "my misery is of
my own making," and she raised her tear-filled eyes to the sky.

"Perhaps you don't remember it, but that is the place where we met each
other for the first time," shouted the General from below, and he waved
his hand towards the distance. "There, down yonder, near those poplars!"

The Englishman nodded abruptly by way of answer.

"So I was bound to die young and to know no happiness," Julie continued.
"Yes, do not think that I live. Sorrow is just as fatal as the dreadful
disease which you have cured. I do not think that I am to blame. No. My
love is stronger than I am, and eternal; but all unconsciously it grew
in me; and I will not be guilty through my love. Nevertheless, though I
shall be faithful to my conscience as