him.  Julia did not succeed, without an almost convulsive restraint, in carrying with bold and smiling countenance the burden of her thought.  To the only witness who knew the secret of her struggles, it was a poignant spectacle to behold the gracious and feverish animation of which the unhappy child sustained the appearance with so much difficulty.  He saw her sometimes at a distance, like an exhausted comedienne, retiring to some isolated bench in the garden, and fairly panting with her hand pressing upon her bosom, as if to keep down her rebellious heart.  He felt then, in spite of all, overcome with immense pity in presence of so much beauty and so much misery.

Was it only pity?

The attitude, the words, the looks of Clotilde and of Julia’s husband were at the same time, for Monsieur de Lucan, the objects of constant and uneasy observation.  Clotilde had evidently not conceived the slightest alarm.  The gentle serenity of her features remained unaltered.  A few oddities, more or less, in Julia’s ways did not constitute a sufficient novelty to attract her particular attention.  Her mind, moreover, was too far away from the monstrous abysses yawning at her side; she might have stepped into them and been swallowed up, before she had suspected their existence.

The blonde, placid, and handsome countenance of the Count de Moras retained at all times, like Lucan’s dark face, a sort of sculptural firmness.  It was, therefore, rather difficult to read upon it the impressions of a soul which was naturally strong and self-controlling.  On one point, however, that soul had become weak.  Monsieur de Lucan was not ignorant of the fact; he was aware of the count’s ardent love for Julia, and of the sickly susceptibility of his passion.

It seemed unlikely that such a sentiment, if it were seriously set at defiance, should not betray itself in some violent or at least perceptible exterior sign.  Monsieur de Lucan, in reality, was unable to observe any of these dreaded symptoms.  If he did occasionally surprise a fugitive wrinkle on his brow, a doubtful intonation, a fugitive or absent glance, he might believe at most in some return of that vague and chimerical jealousy with which he knew the count to have been long tormented.  Besides, he saw him carrying into their family circle the same impassive and smiling face, and he continued to receive from him the same tokens of cordiality.  Oppressed, nevertheless by his legitimate scruples of loyalty and friendship, he had for one moment the mad temptation of revealing to the count the trial that was imposed upon them; but while revealing his own heart, would not such a delicate and cruel confession break the heart of his friend?  And, moreover, would not such a pretended act of loyalty, involving the betrayal of a woman’s secret, be tainted with cowardice and treason?

It was necessary, therefore, amid so many dangers and so much anxiety, to sustain alone, and to the end, the weight of that trial, more complicated and more perilous still, perhaps, than Monsieur de Lucan was willing to admit to himself.