o, he saw her eyes opening in the darkness, and he
helped her raise her head.

"What is it?" she said, looking at him with a wild expression; "what has
happened, sir?"

"Why, you fainted," said Lucan, laughing.

"Fainted?" repeated Julia.

"Of course; that's just what I feared; you must have been benumbed by the
cold. Can you walk? Come, try."

"Perfectly well," she said, rising and taking his arm.

Like all those who experience sudden prostration, Julia remembered, but in
a very indistinct manner, the circumstance that had brought about her
fainting.

In the meantime they had resumed their walk slowly in the direction of the
chateau.

"Fainted!" she repeated, gayly; "mon Dieu! how perfectly ridiculous!"

Then, with sudden animation:

"But what did I say? Did I speak at all?"

"You said, 'I am cold!' and away you went!"

"Just like that?"

"Just like that."

"Did you think I was dead?"

"I did hope for a moment that you were," said Lucan, coldly.

"How horrid of you! But we were talking before that. What were we saying?"

"We were making a pact of amity and friendship."

"Well! it doesn't look much like it now, Monsieur de Lucan!"

"Madam?"

"You seem positively angry with me because I fainted."

"Of course I am. In the first place, I don't like that sort of adventures,
and then, it is wholly your own fault; you are so imprudent, so
unreasonable!"

"Oh! mon Dieu! Don't you want a switch?"

And as the lights of the chateau were coming into sight:

"_Apropos_, don't trouble mother with any of that nonsense, will you?"

"Certainly not; you may rest easy on that score."

"You are just as cross as you can be, you know?"

"Probably I am; but I have just spent there a few minutes so very
painful."

"I pity you with all my heart," said Julia, dryly.

She threw off her vail in the vestibule, and returned to the parlor.

The Baroness de Pers, who was to leave early the next day, had already
retired. Julia performed some four-handed pieces on the piano with her
mother. Monsieur de Lucan took the place of the "dummy" at the whist
table, and the evening ended quietly.

CHAPTER VII.

VICTORY AND DEFEAT.

The next morning, Clotilde was preparing to accompany her mother to the
station in the carriage; Monsieur de Lucan, detained at the chateau by a
business appointment, was present to take leave of his mother-in-law. He
remarked the thoughtful countenance of the baroness; she was sile