“‘You must,’ he said, ’keep me company for a little distance.  As you are on your way to Sauveterre, it will not delay you much to take the cross-road which passes by Valpinson and the forest of Rochepommier.’

“On what trifles our fate depends!

“I accompanied the priest, and only left him at the point where the high-road and the cross-road intersect.  As soon as I was alone, I hastened on; and I was almost through the wood, when, all of a sudden, some twenty yards before me, I saw the Countess Claudieuse coming towards me.  In spite of my emotion, I kept on my way, determined to bow to her, but to pass her without speaking.  I did so, and had gone on a little distance, when I heard her call me,—­

“‘Jacques!’

“I stopped; or, rather, I was nailed to the spot by that voice which for a long time had held such entire control over my heart.  She came up to me, looking even more excited than I was.  Her lips trembled, and her eyes wandered to and fro.

“‘Well,’ she said, ’it is no longer a fancy:  this time you marry Miss Chandore.’

“The time for half-measures had passed.

“‘Yes,’ I replied.

“‘Then it is really true,’ she said again.  ’It is all over now.  I suppose it would be in vain to remind you of those vows of eternal love which you used to repeat over and over again.  Look down there under that old oak.  They are the same trees, this is the same landscape, and I am still the same woman; but your heart has changed.’

“I made no reply.

“‘You love her very much, do you?’ she asked me.

“I kept obstinately silent.

“‘I understand,’ she said, ’I understand you but too well.  And Dionysia?  She loves you so much she cannot keep it to herself.  She stops her friends to tell them all about her marriage, and to assure them of her happiness.  Oh, yes, indeed, very happy!  That love which was my disgrace is her honor.  I was forced to conceal it like a crime:  she can display it as a virtue.  Social forms are, after all, very absurd and unjust; but a fool is he who tries to defy them.’

“Tears, the very first tears I had ever seen her shed, glittered in her long silky eyelashes.

“’And to be nothing more to you,—­nothing at all!  Ah, I was too cautious!  Do you recollect the morning after your uncle’s death, when you, now a rich man, proposed that we should flee?  I refused; I clung to my reputation.  I wanted to be respected.  I thought it possible to divide life into two parts,—­one to be devoted to pleasure; the other, to the hypocrisy of duty.  Poor fool that I was!  And still I discovered long ago that you were weary of me.  I knew you so well!  Your heart was like an open book to me, in which I read your most secret thoughts.  Then I might have retained you.  I ought to have been humble, obliging, submissive.  Instead of that, I tried to command.

“‘And you,’ she said after a short pause,—­’are you happy?’