ed and received the good-night kiss upon her forehead; the formal,
loveless grimace seemed hateful to her at that moment.

As soon as the door closed upon Victor, his wife sank into a seat. Her
limbs tottered beneath her, she burst into tears. None but those who
have endured the torture of some such scene can fully understand the
anguish that it means, or divine the horror of the long-drawn tragedy
arising out of it.

Those simple, foolish words, the silence that followed between the
husband and wife, the Marquis' gesture and expression, the way in which
he sat before the fire, his attitude as he made that futile attempt to
put a kiss on his wife's throat,--all these things made up a dark hour
for Julie, and the catastrophe of the drama of her sad and lonely life.
In her madness she knelt down before the sofa, burying her face in it
to shut out everything from sight, and prayed to Heaven, putting a new
significance into the words of the evening prayer, till it became a cry
from the depths of her own soul, which would have gone to her husband's
heart if he had heard it.

The following week she spent in deep thought for her future, utterly
overwhelmed by this new trouble. She made a study of it, trying to
discover a way to regain her ascendency over the Marquis, scheming how
to live long enough to watch over her daughter's happiness, yet to live
true to her own heart. Then she made up her mind. She would struggle
with her rival. She would shine once more in society. She would feign
the love which she could no longer feel, she would captivate her
husband's fancy; and when she had lured him into her power, she
would coquet with him like a capricious mistress who takes delight in
tormenting a lover. This hateful strategy was the only possible way out
of her troubles. In this way she would become mistress of the situation;
she would prescribe her own sufferings at her good pleasure, and reduce
them by enslaving her husband, and bringing him under a tyrannous yoke.
She felt not the slightest remorse for the hard life which he should
lead. At a bound she reached cold, calculating indifference--for her
daughter's sake. She had gained a sudden insight into the treacherous,
lying arts of degraded women; the wiles of coquetry, the revolting
cunning which arouses such profound hatred in men at the mere suspicion
of innate corruption in a woman.

Julie's feminine vanity, her interests, and a vague desire to inflict
punishment, al