"_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