She was sitting directly opposite, and as he entered she raised her eyes with such a look of glad expectation, that it quite overwhelmed him, and, striking his hand against his forehead, he walked up and down the room for a moment, without speaking. "In the name of heaven, Charles!" exclaimed Julie, "what is the matter?" Charles took her hand, and led her back to the sofa from which she had risen. "Julie," said he, "my father is as cruel as yours. He refuses his consent to our union; but be assured----" At that moment the deadly paleness, the wild despair, of Julie's countenance, stopped him as he spoke. Charles had deceived himself, and still more deceived her, with respect to his father. She had never imagined the possibility of his refusing, and now it came like the stroke of death. All the horror, all the desolation of her situation flashed upon her mind. It stunned, it stupified her. Every sense, every thought was overwhelmed in the wild tempest of her disappointed hopes, and she sat gazing in the face of her lover in dumb inanimate despair. Charles at first attempted to call her to herself, but in vain. She sat like marble. At length, starting up, "Julie," he cried, "I go again to my father, and be sure I will bring you his consent, or I will die at his feet!"--and he quitted the room. But Julie heard him not. She sat with her hands clasped, and her eyes fixed upon the door. Her senses were bewildered. A sudden panic seized her, she knew not of what. She started up, and, as if she flew from something which pursued her, she ran down the stairs of the hotel into the street. She passed rapidly along the Rue Royale to the Place Louis Quinze. The cool air revived her, and thought began to return, when some one caught her by the arm with a grasp of iron; she turned and cast herself at his feet. "My father! Oh heaven, my father!" cried Julie. Villars answered nothing, but held her tight by the wrist, while he drew a poniard from his bosom. "Disgrace your father's name!" said he at length. "If you have a prayer to offer to heaven, offer it now, for the blood of Villars shall never flow in impure veins!" Julie strove to speak, but terror left her no voice. At length she cried, "Indeed, indeed, I am innocent!" "Art thou a _liar_ too?" cried Villars, casting his cloak over her head, and raising his hand. "Thus I wipe out your infamy!" He plunged the dagger in her bosom--he raised it again, but no--he could not repeat it--there was a faint smothered cry--a shudder like the flutter of a dying bird, and then it lay a cold inanimate weight upon his bosom--It was done! But then the implacable unyielding spirit which had thus far sustained him forsook him for a moment, and he stood stupified, without thought, without feeling, without remembrance.