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Cease to write altogether? But then how live? His pen was his sole subsistence, save 30 sous a-day as a National Guard-30 sous a-day to him who, in order to be Sybarite in tastes, was Spartan in doctrine. Nothing better just at that moment than Spartan doctrine-" Live on black broth, and fight the enemy." And the journalists in Vogue so thrived upon that patriotic sentiment, that they were the last persons compelled to drink the black broth or to fight the enemy.

"Those women are such idiots when they meddle in politics," grumbled between his teeth the enthusiastic advocate of Woman's Rights on all matters of love. "And," he continued, soliloquising, "it is not as if the girl had any large or decent dot; it is not as if she said, 'In return for the sacrifice of your popularity, your pros pects, your opinions, I give you not only a devoted heart, but an excellent table and a capital fire and plenty of pocket-money.' Sacre bleu! when I think of that frozen salon, and possibly the leg of a mouse for dinner, and a virtuous homily by way of grace, the prospect is not alluring; and the girl herself is not so pretty as she was— grown very thin. Sur mon âme, I think she asks too much-far more than she is worth. No, no; I had better have accepted her dismissal. Elle n'est pas digne de moi.”

looked more beautiful, more radiant,
than she did now; and there was
a wonderful heartfelt fondness in
her voice when she cried,
"Mon
homme! mon homme! seul homme
au monde à mon cœur, Gustave,
chéri adoré! I have found thee-

at last at last!" Gustave gazed
upon her, stupefied. Involuntarily
his eye glanced from the freshness
of bloom in her face, which the in-
tense cold of the atmosphere only
seemed to heighten into purer health,
to her dress, which was new and
handsome-black-he did not know
that it was mourning-the cloak
trimmed with costly sables. Cer-
tainly it was no mendicant for alms
who thus reminded the shivering
Adonis of the claims of a pristine
Venus. He stammered out her
name- "Julie !"-and then he
stopped.

-

"Oui, ta Julie! Petit ingrat ! how I have sought for thee! how I have hungered for the sight of thee! That monster Savarin! he would not give me any news of thee. That is ages ago. But at least Frederic Lemercier, whom I saw since, promised to remind thee that I lived still. He did not do so, or I should have seen theen'est ce pas ?"

"Certainly, certainly-onlychère amie-you know that-that -as I before announced to thee, I-I-was engaged in marriage— and-and

"But are you married?"

"No, no. Hark! Take careis not that the hiss of an obus?"

"What then? Let it come ! Would it might slay us both while my hand is in thine !"

Just as he arrived at that conclusion, Gustave Rameau felt the touch of a light, a soft, a warm, yet a firm hand, on his arm. He turned, and beheld the face of the woman whom, through so many dreary weeks, he had sought to shunthe face of Julie Caumartin. Julie was not, as Savarin had seen her, looking pinched and wan, with faded robes, nor, as when met in "No," he said, aloud, "I am the café by Lemercier, in the faded not married. Marriage is at best robes of a theatre. Julie never a pitiful ceremony.

"Ah!" muttered Gustave, inwardly, "what a difference! This is love! No preaching here! Elle est plus digne de moi que l'autre."

But if you

wished for news of me, surely you must have heard of my effect as an orator not despised in the Salle Favre. Since, I have withdrawn from that arena. But as a journalist I flatter myself that I have had a beau succès."

"Doubtless, doubtless, my Gustave, my Poet! Wherever thou art, thou must be first among men. But, alas! it is my fault-my misfortune. I have not been in the midst of a world that perhaps rings of thy name."

"Not my name. Prudence compelled me to conceal that. Still, Genius pierces under any name. You might have discovered me under my nom de plume."

"Pardon me I was always bête. But, oh! for so many weeks I was so poor-so destitute. I could go nowhere, except-don't be ashamed of me-except

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"Yes? Go on." "Except where I could get some money. At first to dance you remember my bolero. Then I got a better engagement. Do you not remember that you taught me to recite verses? Had it been for myself alone, I might have been contented to starve. Without thee, what was life? But thou wilt recollect Madeleine, the old bonne who lived with me. Well, she had attended and cherished me since I was so high-lived with my mother. Mother! no; it seems that Madame Surville was not my mother after all.

But, of course, I could not let my old Madeleine starve; and therefore, with a heart heavy as lead, I danced and declaimed. My heart was not so heavy when I recited thy songs."

"My songs! Pauvre ange!" exclaimed the Poet.

"And then, too, I thought, 'Ah! this dreadful siege! He, too, may be poor-he may know want and hunger;' and so all I could save

from Madeleine I put into a box for thee, in case thou shouldst come back to me some day. Mon homme, how could I go to the Salle Favre? How could I read journals, Gustave? But thou art not married, Gustave? Parole d'honneur ?"

"Parole d'honneur! What does that matter?"

"Everything! Ah! I am not so méchante, so mauvaise tête, as I was some months ago. If thou wert married, I should say, 'Blessed and sacred be thy wife! Forget me.' But as it is, one word more. Dost thou love the young lady, whoever she be or does she love thee so well that it would be sin in thee to talk trifles to Julie? Speak as honestly as if thou wert not a poet."

66

'Honestly, she never said she loved me. I never thought she did. But, you see, I was very ill, and my parents and friends and my physician said that it was right for me to arrange my life, and marry, and so forth. And the girl had money, and was a good match. In short, the thing was settled. But oh, Julie, she never learned my songs by heart! She did not love as thou didst, and still dost. And-ah! well-now that we meet again-now that I look in thy face-now that I hear thy voice-- No, I do not love her as I loved, and might yet love, thee. But-but

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"My dear friend, my dear child" (the Parisian is very fond of the word child or enfant in addressing a woman), "I have never seen thee so beautiful as thou art now; and when thou tellest me that thou art no longer poor, and the proof of what thou sayest is visible in the furs, which, alas! I cannot give thee, what am I to think?"

"Oh, mon homme, mon homme! thou art very spirituel, and that is why I loved thee. I am very bête, and that is excuse enough for thee if thou couldst not love me. But canst thou look me in the face and not know that my eyes could not meet thine as they do, if I had been faithless to thee even in a thought, when I so boldly touched thine arm? Viens chez moi, come and let me

explain all.

Only-only let me

repeat, if another has rights over thee which forbid thee to come, say so kindly, and I will never trouble thee again."

Gustave had been hitherto walking slowly by the side of Julie, amidst the distant boom of the besiegers' cannon, while the short day began to close; and along the dreary Boulevards sauntered idlers turning to look at the young, beautiful, welldressed woman who seemed in such contrast to the capital whose former luxuries the "Ondine" of imperial Paris represented. He now offered his arm to Julie; and, quickening his pace, said, "There is no reason why I should refuse to attend thee home, and listen to the explanations thou dost generously condescend to volunteer."

CHAPTER IX.

"Ah, indeed! what a difference! what a difference!" said Gustave to himself when he entered Julie's apartment. In her palmier days, when he had first made her acquaintance, the apartment no doubt had been infinitely more splendid, more abundant in silks and fringes and flowers and nick-nacks; but never had it seemed so cheery and comfortable and home-like as now. What a contrast to Isaura's dismantled chilly salon! She drew him towards the hearth, on which, blazing though it was, she piled fresh billets, seated him in the easiest of easy-chairs, knelt beside him, and chafed his numbed hands in hers; and as her bright eyes fixed tenderly on his, she looked so young and so innocent! You would not then have called her the "Ondine of Paris."

But when, a little while after, revived by the genial warmth and moved by the charm of her beauty,

Gustave passed his arm round her neck and sought to draw her on his lap, she slid from his embrace, shaking her head gently, and seated herself, with a pretty air of ceremonious decorum, at a little distance.

Gustave looked at her amazed.

"Causons," said she, gravely: "thou wouldst know why I am so well dressed, so comfortably lodged, and I am longing to explain to thee all. Some days ago I had just finished my performance at the Café, and was putting on my shawl, when a tall Monsieur, fort bel homme, with the air of a grand seigneur, entered the café, and, approaching me politely, said, 'I think I have the honour to address Mademoiselle Julie Caumartin?' 'That is my name,' I said, surprised; and, looking at him more intently, I recognised his face. He had come into the café a few days before with thine old acquaintance Frederic Lemercier, and stood by when I

asked Frederic to give me news of thee. 'Mademoiselle,' he continued, with a serious melancholy smile, 'I shall startle you when I say that I am appointed to act as your guardian by the last request of your mother.' 'Of Madame Surville?' 'Madame Surville adopted you, but was not your mother. We cannot talk at ease here. Allow me to request that you will accompany me to Monsieur N, the avoué. -, the avoué. It is not very far from this and by the way I will tell you some news that may sadden, and some news that may rejoice.'

"There was an earnestness in the voice and look of this Monsieur that impressed me. He did not offer me his arm; but I walked by his side in the direction he chose. As we walked he told me in very few words that my mother had been separated from her husband, and for certain family reasons had found it so difficult to rear and provide for me herself, that she had accepted the offer of Madame Surville to adopt me as her own child. While he spoke, there came dimly back to me the remembrance of a lady who had taken me from my first home, when I had been, as I understood, at nurse, and left me with poor dear Madame Surville, saying, 'This is henceforth your mamma.' I never again saw that lady. It seems that many years afterwards my true mother desired to regain me. Madame Surville was then dead. She failed to trace me out, owing, alas! to my own faults and change of name. She then entered a nunnery, but before doing so, assigned a sum of 100,000 francs to this gentleman, who was distantly connected with her, with full power to him to take it to himself, or give it to my use should he discover me, at his discretion. 'I ask you,' continued the Monsieur, 'to go with me to Mons. N's, because the sum is still in

his hands. He will confirm my statement. All that I have now to say is this: If you accept my guardianship, if you obey implicitly my advice, I shall consider the interest of this sum which has accumulated since deposited with M. N due to you; and the capital will be your dot on marriage, if the marriage be with my consent.'

Gustave had listened very attentively, and without interruption, till now; when he looked up, and said with his customary sneer, "Did your Monsieur, fort bel homme you say, inform you of the value of the advice, rather of the commands, you were implicitly to obey?"

"Yes," answered Julie, "not then, but later. Let me go on. We arrived at M. N- -'s, an elderly grave man. He said that all he knew was that he held the money in trust for the Monsieur with me, to be given to him, with the accumulations of interest, on the death of the lady who had deposited it. If that Monsieur had instructions how to dispose of the money, they were not known to him. All he had to do was to transfer it absolutely to him on the proper certificate of the lady's death. So you see, Gustave, that the Monsieur could have kept all from me if he had liked."

"Your Monsieur is very generous. Perhaps you will now tell me his

name.

"No; he forbids me to do it yet."

"And he took this apartment for you, and gave you the money to buy that smart dress and these furs. Bah! mon enfant, why try to deceive me? Do I not know my Paris? A fort bel homme does not make himself guardian to a fort belle fille so young and fair as Mademoiselle Julie Caumartin without certain considerations which shall be nameless, like himself."

Julie's eyes flashed. "Ah, Gus

tave! ah, Monsieur!" she said, half angrily, half plaintively, "I see that my guardian knew you better than I did. Never mind; I will not reproach. Thou hast the right to despise me.",

"Pardon! I did not mean to offend thee," said Gustave, somewhat disconcerted. "But own that thy story is strange; and this guardian, who knows me better than thou-does he know me at all? Didst thou speak to him of me?"

"How could I help it? He says that this terrible war, in which he takes an active part, makes his life uncertain from day to day. He wished to complete the trust bequeathed to him by seeing me safe in the love of some worthy man who "-she paused for a moment with an expression of compressed anguish, and then hurried on "who would recognise what was good in me,—would never reproach me for -for-the past. I then said that my heart was thine: I could never marry any one but thee."

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Marry me," faltered Gustavemarry!"

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"But," resumed Rameau, with an affected laugh, "why think of anything so formidable as marriage? Thou lovest me, andHe approached again, seeking to embrace her. She recoiled. "No, Gustave, no. I have sworn-sworn solemnly by the memory of my lost mother, that I will never sin again. I will never be to thee other than thy friend-or thy wife."

Before Gustave could reply to these words, which took him wholly by surprise, there was a ring at the

outer door, and the old bonne ushered in Victor de Mauléon. He halted at the threshold, and his brow contracted.

"So you have already broken faith with me, Mademoiselle?"

"No, Monsieur, I have not broken faith," cried Julie, passionately. "I told you that I would not seek to find out Monsieur Rameau. I did not seek, but I met him unexpectedly. I owed to him an explanation. I invited him here to give that explanation. Without it, what would he have thought of me? Now he may go, and I will never admit him again without your sanction."

The Vicomte turned his stern look upon Gustave, who though, as we know, not wanting in personal courage, felt cowed by his false position; and his eye fell, quailed before De Mauléon's gaze.

"Leave us for a few minutes alone, Mademoiselle," said the Vicomte. "Nay, Julie," he added, in softened tones, fear nothing. too, owe explanation-friendly explanation to M. Rameau."

I,

With his habitual courtesy toward women, he extended his hand to Julie, and led her from the room. Then, closing the door, he seated himself, and made a sign to Gustave to do the same.

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"Monsieur," said De Mauléon, excuse me if I detain you. A very few words will suffice for our present interview. I take it for granted that Mademoiselle has told you that she is no child of Madame Surville's: that her own mother bequeathed her to my protection and guardianship, with a modest fortune which is at my disposal to give or withhold. The little I have seen already of Mademoiselle impresses me with sincere interest in her fate. I look with compassion on what she may have been in the past; I anticipate with hope what she may be in the future. I do not

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