Though she found no pleasure in the scenes she had formerly loved, yet she had no inducement to return home. All there was cold, and she wandered on farther than had been her wont. She had proceeded nearly an hour, when she heard a quick step behind her. She knew not why, but it caused her an emotion of fear, and she hurried her pace. "Julie!" said a voice she could not mistake; "Dear Julie! It is I." She turned, and Charles caught her in his arms, and pressed her fondly but gently to his bosom. Julie said nothing, but hid her eyes upon his shoulder and wept; but the dreadful promise she had made her father was to be told; and at length, summoning all her resolution, she did so. Charles did not appear so much surprised as she expected. "Julie," said he, "after the promise you have made, if we part, we part for ever. Let us never part!" It was a scheme he had formed immediately on quitting her father's house, and he now displayed it to Julie in the brightest colours it would admit of. He had been wandering about the country ever since, he said. His carriage had been always on the road prepared for a journey. He had counted much upon his Julie's love. He had procured a passport for Paris. The moment they arrived she should give him her hand at the altar. His father should use all means to soften hers, and there could be no doubt that Villars would soon relent. He pleaded with all the eloquence of love and hope. Even despair lent him arguments. He had strong allies, too, in Julie's own breast: her love for him, her fear of her father, and the dreadful overwhelming thought, that if she once parted from him she should never see him again. A doubt of him never entered into her mind; but there was something in the idea of accompanying him alone to Paris, which made the blood rush into her cheek. All the delicacy of a pure mind, and the fear of doing wrong, caused her to shrink from the very thought: a thousand opposing feelings came one after another through her breast, and gazing anxiously in the face of her lover, "Oh no, no, Charles!" she replied, "do not ask me;" and, striving to call up all her sense of duty, she added, more firmly, "Impossible!" A deep settled gloom came over Charles's countenance--a calm impressive look of despair. He took both Julie's hands in his, and pressed them twice to his lips. "Cruel girl!" he said, in a low voice, which He strove to command to steadiness; "you love me less than I thought. Hear me," he continued, seeing her about to speak, "hear me to the end; for your reply will be my doom. I am not rash, but I can never live without you. My fate is on your lips. Am I to live or die? for within an hour after you have quitted me, I shall have ceased to exist. Speak, Julie! Do you bid me die? for that is the alternative." Julie gazed on him for a moment, as if she scarcely comprehended the import of his words; and then again hid her eyes upon his shoulder and wept. "Speak, speak, Julie!" cried Charles.