wife."

"True," said Montraville; "but she was innocent when I first knew her.
It was I seduced her, Belcour. Had it not been for me, she had still
been virtuous and happy in the affection and protection of her family."

"Pshaw," replied Belcour, laughing, "if you had not taken advantage of
her easy nature, some other would, and where is the difference, pray?"

"I wish I had never seen her," cried he passionately, and starting from
his seat. "Oh that cursed French woman," added he with vehemence, "had
it not been for her, I might have been happy--" He paused.

"With Julia Franklin," said Belcour. The name, like a sudden spark
of electric fire, seemed for a moment to suspend his faculties--for a
moment he was transfixed; but recovering, he caught Belcour's hand, and
cried--"Stop! stop! I beseech you, name not the lovely Julia and
the wretched Montraville in the same breath. I am a seducer, a mean,
ungenerous seducer of unsuspecting innocence. I dare not hope that
purity like her's would stoop to unite itself with black, premeditated
guilt: yet by heavens I swear, Belcour, I thought I loved the lost,
abandoned Charlotte till I saw Julia--I thought I never could forsake
her; but the heart is deceitful, and I now can plainly discriminate
between the impulse of a youthful passion, and the pure flame of
disinterested affection."

At that instant Julia Franklin passed the window, leaning on her uncle's
arm. She curtseyed as she passed, and, with the bewitching smile of
modest cheerfulness, cried--"Do you bury yourselves in the house this
fine evening, gents?" There was something in the voice! the manner! the
look! that was altogether irresistible. "Perhaps she wishes my company,"
said Montraville mentally, as he snatched up his hat: "if I thought she
loved me, I would confess my errors, and trust to her generosity to pity
and pardon me." He soon overtook her, and offering her his arm, they
sauntered to pleasant but unfrequented walks. Belcour drew Mr. Franklin
on one side and entered into a political discourse: they walked faster
than the young people, and Belcour by some means contrived entirely to
lose sight of them. It was a fine evening in the beginning of autumn;
the last remains of day-light faintly streaked the western sky, while
the moon, with pale and virgin lustre in the room of gorgeous gold and
purple, ornamented the canopy of heaven with silver, fleecy clouds,
which now and then half hid her lovely face, and,