“Anything you please,” said Clotilde, with a sigh.

“I beg of you.  Tell him that I beg of him, too.”

“I’ll tell him; but do you know that Pierre is here?”

“Ah! mon Dieu! and where did you leave him?”

“I left him in the garden.”

“In the garden! how imprudent, mother! why, the ladies are going to tear him to pieces—­like Orpheus, for you may well believe that he is not in the odor of sanctity here.”

Monsieur de Moras was sent for at once, and he came up in all haste.  Julia began laughing as he appeared at the door, which facilitated his entree.  She had several times, during their interview, fits of that nervous laughter which is so useful to women in trying circumstances.  Deprived of that resource, Monsieur de Moras contented himself with kissing the beautiful hands of his cousin, and was otherwise generally wanting in eloquence; but his handsome and manly features were resplendent, and his large blue eyes were moist with gratified affection.  He appeared to leave a favorable impression.

“I had never considered him in that light,” said Julia to her mother; “he is very handsome—­he will make a splendid-looking husband.”

The marriage took place three months later, privately and without any display.  The Count de Moras and his youthful bride left for Italy the same evening.

Monsieur de Lucan had left Paris two or three weeks before, and had taken up his quarters in an old family residence at the very extremity of Normandy, where Clotilde hastened to join him immediately after Julia’s departure.

CHAPTER IV.

A GREWSOME ABODE.

Vastville, the patrimonial domain of the Lucan family, is situated a short distance from the sea, on the west coast of the Norman Finisterre.  It is a manor with high roof and wrought-iron balconies, which dates from the time of Louis XIII., and which has taken the place of the old castle, a few ruins of which still serve to ornament the park.  It is concealed in a thickly shaded depression of the soil, and a long avenue of antique elms precedes it.  The aspect of it is singularly retired and melancholy, owing to the dense woods that surround it on all sides.  This wooded thicket marks, on this point of the peninsula, the last effort of the vigorous vegetation of Normandy.  As soon as its edge has been crossed, the view extends suddenly and without obstacle over the vast moors which form the triangular plateau of the Cape La Hague; fields of furze and heather, stone fences without cement, here and there a cross of granite, on the right and on the left the distant undulations of the ocean—­such is the severe but grand landscape that is suddenly unfolded to the eyes beneath the unobstructed light of the heavens.