Left alone with her guest, the younger lady seemed embarrassed. "What shall I play for you?" she asked, in a constrained voice, taking her seat at the piano. "Oh! anything--play a waltz," answered Camors, absently. The waltz finished, an awkward silence ensued. To break it she arose hesitatingly; then clasping her hands together exclaimed, "It seems to me there is a storm. Do you not think so?" She approached the window, opened it, and stepped out on the balcony. In a second Camors was at her side. The night was beautifully clear. Before them stretched the sombre shadow of the wood, while nearer trembling rays of moonlight slept upon the lawn. How still all was! Their trembling hands met and for a moment did not separate. "Juliette!" whispered the young man, in a low, broken voice. She shuddered, repelled the arm that Camors passed round her, and hastily reentered the room. "Leave me, I pray you!" she cried, with an impetuous gesture of her hand, as she sank upon the sofa, and buried her face in her hands. Of course Camors did not obey. He seated himself by her. In a little while Juliette awoke from her trance; but she awoke a lost woman! How bitter was that awakening! She measured at a first glance the depth of the awful abyss into which she had suddenly plunged. Her husband, her mother, her infant, whirled like spectres in the mad chaos of her brain. Sensible of the anguish of an irreparable wrong, she rose, passed her hand vacantly across her brow, and muttering, "Oh, God! oh, God!" peered vainly into the dark for light--hope--refuge! There was none! Her tortured soul cast herself utterly on that of her lover. She turned her swimming eyes on him and said: "How you must despise me!" Camors, half kneeling on the carpet near her, kissed her hand indifferently and half raised his shoulders in sign of denial. "Is it not so?" she repeated. "Answer me, Louis." His face wore a strange, cruel smile--"Do not insist on an answer, I pray you," he said. "Then I am right? You do despise me?" Camors turned himself abruptly full toward her, looked straight in her face, and said, in a cold, hard voice, "I do!" To this cruel speech the poor child replied by a wild cry that seemed to rend her, while her eyes dilated as if under the influence of strong poison. Camors strode across the room, then returned and stood by her as he said, in a quick, violent tone: "You think I am brutal? Perhaps I am, but that can matter little now. After the irreparable wrong I have done you, there is one service--and only one which I can now render you. I do it now, and tell you the truth. Understand me clearly; women who fall do not judge themselves more harshly than their accomplices judge them. For myself, what would you have me think of you?