CHAPTER X.
Denunciation.
But what of Juliette?
What of this wild, passionate, romantic creature tortured by a Titanic conflict?
She, but a girl, scarcely yet a woman, torn by the greatest antagonistic powers that ever fought for a human soul.

On the one side duty, tradition, her dead brother, her father--above all, her religion and the oath she had sworn before God; on the other justice and honour, a case of right and wrong, honesty and pity.
How she fought with these powers now! She fought with them, struggled with them on her knees.

She tried to crush memory, tried to forget that awful midnight scene ten years ago, her brother's dead body, her father's avenging hand holding her own, as he begged her to do that, which he was too feeble, too old to accomplish.
His words rang in her ears from across that long vista of the past.
"Before the face of Almighthy God, who sees and hears me, I swear ..." And she had repeated those words loudly and of her own free will, with her hand resting on her brother's breast, and God Himself looking down upon her, for she had called upon Him to listen.
"I swear that I will seek out Paul Deroulede, and in any manner which God may dictate to me encompass his death, his ruin, or dishonour in revenge for my brother's death.

May my brother's soul remain in torment until the final Judgment Day if I should break my oath, but may it rest in eternal peace, the day on which his death is fitly avenged." Almost it seemed to her as if father and brother were standing by her side, as she knelt and prayed .-- Oh! how she prayed! In many ways she was only a child.

All her years had been passed in confinement, either beside her dying father or, later, between the four walls of the Ursuline Convent.