La Briere, full of dark presentiments, craved the presence of Modeste with an eagerness whose bitter joys are known only to lovers who feel that they are parted, and parted fatally from those they love.  Flashes of joy came to him intermingled with melancholy meditations on the one theme, “I have lost her,” and made him all the more interesting to those who watched him, because his face and his whole person were in keeping with his profound feeling.  There is nothing more poetic than a living elegy, animated by a pair of eyes, walking about, and sighing without rhymes.

The Duc d’Herouville arrived at last to arrange for Modeste’s departure; after crossing the Seine she was to be conveyed in the duke’s caleche, accompanied by the Demoiselles d’Herouville.  The duke was charmingly courteous, he begged Canalis and La Briere to be of the party, assuring them, as he did the colonel, that he had taken particular care that hunters should be provided for them.  The colonel invited the three lovers to breakfast on the morning of the start.  Canalis then began to put into execution a plan that he had been maturing in his own mind for the last few days; namely, to quietly reconquer Modeste, and throw over the duchess, La Briere, and the duke.  A graduate of diplomacy could hardly remain stuck in the position in which he found himself.  On the other hand La Briere had come to the resolution of bidding Modeste an eternal farewell.  Each suitor was therefore on the watch to slip in a last word, like the defendant’s counsel to the court before judgment is pronounced; for all felt that the three weeks’ struggle was approaching its conclusion.  After dinner on the evening before the start was to be made, the colonel had taken his daughter by the arm and made her feel the necessity of deciding.

“Our position with the d’Herouville family will be quite intolerable at Rosembray,” he said to her.  “Do you mean to be a duchess?”

“No, father,” she answered.

“Then do you love Canalis?”

“No, papa, a thousand times no!” she exclaimed with the impatience of a child.

The colonel looked at her with a sort of joy.

“Ah, I have not influenced you,” cried the true father, “and I will now confess that I chose my son-in-law in Paris when, having made him believe that I had but little fortune, he grasped my hand and told me I took a weight from his mind—­”

“Who is it you mean?” asked Modeste, coloring.

“The man of fixed principles and sound moralities,” said her father, slyly, repeating the words which had dissolved poor Modeste’s dream on the day after his return.

“I was not even thinking of him, papa.  Please leave me at liberty to refuse the duke myself; I understand him, and I know how to soothe him.”

“Then your choice is not made?”

“Not yet; there is another syllable or two in the charade of my destiny still to be guessed; but after I have had a glimpse of court life at Rosembray I will tell you my secret.”