In the meanwhile, Julien de Buxieres, angry with himself, irritated by the speedy success of his mission, was losing his way among the pasturages, and getting entangled in the thickets.  All the details of the interview presented themselves before his mind with remorseless clearness.  He seemed more lonely, more unfortunate, more disgusted with himself and with all else than he ever had been before.  Ashamed of the wretched part he had just been enacting, he felt almost childish repugnance to returning to Vivey, and tried to pick out the paths that would take him there by the longest way.  But he was not sufficiently accustomed to laying out a route for himself, and when he thought he had a league farther to go, and had just leaped over an intervening hedge, the pointed roofs of the chateau appeared before him at a distance of not more than a hundred feet, and at one of the windows on the first floor he could distinguish Claudet, leaning for ward, as if to interrogate him.

He remembered then the promise he had made the young huntsman; and faithful to his word, although with rage and bitterness in his heart, he raised his hat, and with effort, waved it three times above his head.  At this signal, the forerunner of good news, Claudet replied by a triumphant shout, and disappeared from the window.  A moment later, Julien heard the noise of furious galloping down the enclosures of the park.  It was the lover, hastening to learn the particulars of the interview.

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     I measure others by myself
     Like all timid persons, he took refuge in a moody silence
     Others found delight in the most ordinary amusements
     Sensitiveness and disposition to self-blame
     Women:  they are more bitter than death
     Yield to their customs, and not pooh-pooh their amusements
     You must be pleased with yourself—­that is more essential

A WOODLAND QUEEN

(’Reine des Bois’)

By Andre Theuriet

BOOK 3.

CHAPTER VII

THE STRANGE, DARK SECRET

Julien had once entertained the hope that Claudet’s marriage with Reine would act as a kind of heroic remedy for the cure of his unfortunate passion, he very soon perceived that he had been wofully mistaken.  As soon as he had informed the grand chasserot of the success of his undertaking, he became aware that his own burden was considerably heavier.  Certainly it had been easier for him to bear uncertainty than the boisterous rapture evinced by his fortunate rival.  His jealousy rose against it, and that was all.  Now that he had torn from Reine the avowal of her love for Claudet, he was more than ever oppressed by his hopeless passion, and plunged into a condition of complete moral and physical disintegration.