ght recover
from the lung complaint which was gaining ground. He was detained, like
all his fellow-countrymen, by Bonaparte when war broke out. That monster
cannot live without fighting. The young Englishman, by way of amusing
himself, took to studying his own complaint, which was believed to be
incurable. By degrees he acquired a liking for anatomy and physic, and
took quite a craze for that kind of thing, a most extraordinary taste
in a man of quality, though the Regent certainly amused himself with
chemistry! In short, Monsieur Arthur made astonishing progress in his
studies; his health did the same under the faculty of Montpellier; he
consoled his captivity, and at the same time his cure was thoroughly
completed. They say that he spent two whole years in a cowshed, living
on cresses and the milk of a cow brought from Switzerland, breathing as
seldom as he could, and never speaking a word. Since he come to Tours
he has lived quite alone; he is as proud as a peacock; but you have
certainly made a conquest of him, for probably it is not on my account
that he has ridden under the window twice every day since you have been
here.--He has certainly fallen in love with you."

That last phrase roused the Countess like magic. Her involuntary start
and smile took the Marquise by surprise. So far from showing a sign of
the instinctive satisfaction felt by the most strait-laced of women when
she learns that she has destroyed the peace of mind of some male
victim, there was a hard, haggard expression in Julie's face--a look of
repulsion amounting almost to loathing.

A woman who loves will put the whole world under the ban of Love's
empire for the sake of the one whom she loves; but such a woman can
laugh and jest; and Julie at that moment looked as if the memory of some
recently escaped peril was too sharp and fresh not to bring with it a
quick sensation of pain. Her aunt, by this time convinced that Julie
did not love her nephew, was stupefied by the discovery that she loved
nobody else. She shuddered lest a further discovery should show her
Julie's heart disenchanted, lest the experience of a day, or perhaps
of a night, should have revealed to a young wife the full extent of
Victor's emptiness.

"If she has found him out, there is an end of it," thought the dowager.
"My nephew will soon be made to feel the inconveniences of wedded life."

The Marquise now proposed to convert Julie to the monarchical doctrines
of the times