Monsieur de Lucan gave the reins to his horse, and he started like the wind.  Julia had already disappeared under cover of the woods.  He followed her track; but among the timber, the roots and the roughness of the ground somewhat checked his speed.  At a short distance, in the center of a narrow clearing, the labor of ages and the filtrations of the soil had hollowed out one of those mysterious fountains whose limpid water, moss-grown banks, and aspect of deep solitude delight the imagination, and give rise to so many poetic legends.  When Monsieur de Lucan was able once more to see Julia, she had alighted from her horse.  The admirably trained animal stood quietly two or three steps away, browsing the young foliage, while his mistress, down on her knees and stooping over the edge of the spring, was drinking from her hands.

“Julia, I beg of you!” exclaimed Monsieur de Lucan in an imploring tone.

She started to her feet with a sort of elastic spring, and greeted him gayly.

“Too late, sir!” she said; “but I only drank a few drops, just a few little wee drops, I assure you!”

“You must really be out of your mind!” said Lucan who was by this time quite close to her.

“Do you think so?”

She was shaking her beautiful white hands, which had served her for a drinking-cup, and which seemed to throw off a shower of diamonds.

“Give me your handkerchief!”

Lucan handed her his handkerchief.  She wiped her hands gravely; then, as she returned the handkerchief with her right hand, she raised herself on tiptoe and held her left hand up to the level of his face: 

“There! now; don’t scold any more!”

Lucan kissed the hand.

“The other now,” she said again.  “Please don’t turn so pale, sir!”

Monsieur Lucan affected not to have heard these last words, and came down abruptly from his horse.

“I must help you to mount,” he said, in a dry and harsh voice.

She was putting on her gloves with downcast look.  Suddenly raising her head and looking at him with fixed gaze: 

“What a miserable wretch I am, am I not?” she said.

“No,” said Lucan; “but what an unhappy being!”

She leaned against one of the trees that shaded the spring, her head partially thrown back and one hand over her eyes.

“Come!” said Lucan.

She obeyed, and he assisted her to get on her horse.  They rode out of the wood without uttering another word, made their way to the road, and soon overtook the cavalcade.

As soon as he had recovered from the anguish of that scene, Monsieur de Lucan did not hesitate to think that the departure of Julia and of her husband must be the immediate and inevitable consequence of it; but when he came to seek some means of bringing about their sudden departure, his mind became lost in difficulties that he could not solve.  What motive could he indeed offer to justify, in the eyes of Clotilde and