"This place--this solitude oppresses me; I cannot endure the isolation to which I am unnaturally and tyrannically condemned. Oh, Julie! there are circumstances, secrets, miseries, I dare not tell you; fate is weaving round me a net, to all eyes but my own invisible. But why do you look at me with those strange glances? Do not believe that I am _guilty_, because I am miserable--do not dare to touch me with such a thought." She stamped her little foot furiously on the floor at these words, while her cheek and eye kindled with excitement. It speedily subsided, however, into a deep and sullen gloom, and she continued-- "I scarce know myself, Julie, what I am, or what I may be; but my heart is as full of tumult, of suffering, of hatred, as hell itself. I will at least be free--my captivity in this magician's prison shall terminate--I _will_ not endure it. It shall end soon, one way or another--I will liberate myself." Lucille spoke with something more than passion--it was fierceness; and her gentle companion was filled with vague alarms. She had, as feeble natures often have, an instinctive appreciation of the superior energy and daring of her more fiery companion, and knew that she would, too probably, take some violent and irreparable step in furtherance of her resolution. It was, therefore, with feelings of anxiety and fear that she left her to the solitary influence of her own angry and excited thoughts. Monsieur Le Prun did not arrive till night. As he and the Count de Blassemare rolled homeward, side by side in his carriage, under the uncertain moonlight, between the lordly rows of forest-trees that, like files of gloomy Titans, kept perennial guard along the approaches of the chateau, or, as Lucille has not unaptly styled it, "the magician's prison," they talked pretty much as follows: "Le Prun, my good friend, you are jealous--jealous, by all the imps in true love's purgatory," said Blassemare. "Not jealous, but cautious." "A nice distinction." "Why, when one has reached our time of life----" "_Ours!_ you might be my father." "Well, I can't deny it, for nobody knows _how_ old you are. But at my years a man with a young wife must exercise precaution. _Par bleu!_ we are neither of us fools, and I need not tell you that." "Why, yes, we have had our experiences--I as a spectator--you as----" "Of course--therefore this threatened irruption of frivolity and vice--" "Say of youth and beauty; the other qualities--frivolity and vice--may coexist with age and ugliness, and, therefore, harmlessly." "Well, what you will, it does not please me. But, under existing circumstances, with my application pending, you know it was impossible to deny the marchioness her whim." "Of course; and so for a single night the Chateau des Anges becomes a fairy palace. Well, what harm--you can't apprehend that a single _fete_, however gay and spirited, will--_ruin_ you."