“Oh, speak not thus,” said St. Amand. “I, _I_ only am to blame,--I, false to both, to both ungrateful. Oh, from the hour that these eyes opened upon you I drank in a new life; the sun itself to me was less wonderful than your beauty. But--but--let me forget that hour. What do I not owe to Lucille? I shall be wretched,--I shall deserve to be so; for shall I not think, Julie, that I have embittered your life with our ill-fated love? But all that I can give--my hand, my home, my plighted faith--must be hers. Nay, Julie, nay--why that look? Could I act otherwise? Can I dream otherwise? Whatever the sacrifice, _must_ I not render it? Ah, what do I owe to Lucille, were it only for the thought that but for her I might never have seen thee!” Lucille stayed to hear no more; with the same soft step as that which had borne her within hearing of these fatal words, she turned back once more to her desolate chamber. That evening, as St. Amand was sitting alone in his apartment, he heard a gentle knock at the door. “Come in,” he said, and Lucille entered. He started in some confusion, and would have taken her hand, but she gently repulsed him. She took a seat opposite to him, and looking down, thus addressed him:-- “My dear Eugene, that is, Monsieur St. Amand, I have something on my mind that I think it better to speak at once; and if I do not exactly express what I would wish to say, you must not be offended with Lucille: it is not an easy matter to put into words what one feels deeply.” Colouring, and suspecting something of the truth, St. Amand would have broken in upon her here; but she with a gentle impatience motioned him to be silent, and continued:-- “You know that when you once loved me, I used to tell you that you would cease to do so could you see how undeserving I was of your attachment. I did not deceive myself, Eugene; I always felt assured that such would be the case, that your love for me necessarily rested on your affliction. But for all that I never at least had a dream or a desire but for your happiness; and God knows, that if again, by walking barefooted, not to Cologne, but to Rome--to the end of the world--I could save you from a much less misfortune than that of blindness, I would cheerfully do it; yes, even though I might foretell all the while that, on my return, you would speak to me coldly, think of me lightly, and that the penalty to me would--would be--what it has been!” Here Lucille wiped a few natural tears from her eyes. St. Amand, struck to the heart, covered his face with his hands, without the courage to interrupt her. Lucille continued:--