"However," she went on, "you may rest easy, my dear sir. Pierre is not jealous. He suspects nothing, as they say in plays!" She laughed one of her wicked laughs, and added at once in a graver tone: "And what could he suspect? In being amiable toward you, I am merely acting under order, and no one can tell how much of it is genuine and how much put on." "I feel quite certain that you don't know yourself," he said, laughingly. "You are a person of naturally restless disposition; you require agitation, and when there is none you try to imitate it as best as you can. Whether you like, or whether you don't like your step-father, is not a very dramatic affair. There is no room here for any but very simple and very ordinary sentiments. It is well enough to complicate them a little--is it not, my dear?" "Yes, my dear!" she said, emphasizing ironically the last word. Whereupon she started her horse at a gallop. They were then just reaching the edge of the woods. He soon saw her leave the direct road that led across them, and take a path over the heath as if intending to dash through the thickest of the timber. At the same instant Clotilde ran up to him, and touching his shoulder with the tip of her whip: "Where in the world is Julia going?" she said. Lucan replied with a vague gesture and a smile. "I am sure," rejoined Clotilde, "that she is going to drink at that fountain, yonder. She was complaining a little while since of being thirsty. Do follow her, dear, will you, and prevent her doing so. She is so warm! It might be fatal to her. Run, I beg of you." 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!"