eapon; all
passion, all expression had died out of her eyes. Lord Grenville stooped
for the thing, raging inwardly over an accident which seemed like a
piece of lovesick strategy.

"_Arthur!_"

"Madame," he said, looking down, "I came here in utter desperation; I
meant----" he broke off.

"You meant to die by your own hand here in my house!"

"Not alone!" he said in a low voice.

"Not alone! My husband, perhaps----?"

"No, no," he cried in a choking voice. "Reassure yourself," he
continued, "I have quite given up my deadly purpose. As soon as I came
in, as soon as I saw you, I felt that I was strong enough to suffer in
silence, and to die alone."

Julie sprang up, and flung herself into his arms. Through her sobbing
he caught a few passionate words, "To know happiness, and then to
die.--Yes, let it be so."

All Julie's story was summed up in that cry from the depths; it was
the summons of nature and of love at which women without a religion
surrender. With the fierce energy of unhoped-for joy, Arthur caught her
up and carried her to the sofa; but in a moment she tore herself from
her lover's arms, looked at him with a fixed despairing gaze, took his
hand, snatched up a candle, and drew him into her room. When they stood
by the cot where Helene lay sleeping, she put the curtains softly aside,
shading the candle with her hand, lest the light should dazzle the
half-closed eyes beneath the transparent lids. Helene lay smiling in her
sleep, with her arms outstretched on the coverlet. Julie glanced from
her child to Arthur's face. That look told him all.

"We may leave a husband, even though he loves us: a man is strong; he
has consolations.--We may defy the world and its laws. But a motherless
child!"--all these thoughts, and a thousand others more moving still,
found language in that glance.

"We can take her with us," muttered he; "I will love her dearly."

"Mamma!" cried little Helene, now awake. Julie burst into tears. Lord
Grenville sat down and folded his arms in gloomy silence.

"Mamma!" At the sweet childish name, so many nobler feelings, so many
irresistible yearnings awoke, that for a moment love was effaced by the
all-powerful instinct of motherhood; the mother triumphed over the woman
in Julie, and Lord Grenville could not hold out, he was defeated by
Julie's tears.

Just at that moment a door was flung noisily open. "Madame d'Aiglemont,
are you hereabouts?" called a voice which rang like a crack