the intonation of the alternate speakers, and their confidential and friendly gestures, evinced a very animated, if not tender, exchange of sentiments.  At times the conversation was enlivened by Claudet’s bursts of laughter, or an amicable gesture from Reine.  At one moment, Julien saw the young girl lay her hand familiarly on the shoulder of the ’grand chssserot’, and immediately a pang of intense jealousy shot through his heart.  At last the young pair arrived at the banks of a stream, which traversed the path and had become swollen by the recent heavy rains.  Claudet took Reine by the waist and lifted her in his vigorous arms, while he picked his way across the stream; then they resumed their way toward the bottom of the pass, and the tall brushwood hid their retreating forms from Julien’s eager gaze, although it was long before the vibrations of their sonorous voices ceased echoing in his ears.

“Ah!” thought he, quite overcome by this new development, “she stands less on ceremony with him than with me!  How close they kept to each other in that lonely path!  With what animation they conversed! with what abandon she allowed herself to be carried in his arms!  All that indicates an intimacy of long standing, and explains a good many things!”

He recalled Reine’s visit to the chateau, and how cleverly she had managed to inform him of the parentage existing between Claudet and the deceased Claude de Buxieres; how she had by her conversation raised a feeling of pity in his mind for Claudet; and a desire to repair the negligence of the deceased.

“How could I be so blind!” thought Julien, with secret scorn of himself; “I did not see anything, I comprehended none of their artifices!  They love each other, that is sure, and I have been playing throughout the part of a dupe.  I do not blame him.  He was in love, and allowed himself to be persuaded.  But she! whom I thought so open, so true, so loyal!  Ah! she is no better than others of her class, and she was coquetting with me in order to insure her lover a position!  Well! one more illusion is destroyed.  Ecclesiastes was right.  ‘Inveni amarivrem morte mulierem’, ’woman is more bitter than death’!”

Twilight had come, and it was already dark in the forest.  Slowly and reluctantly, Julien descended the slope leading to the chateau, and the gloom of the woods entered his heart.

CHAPTER VI

LOVE BY PROXY

Jealousy is a maleficent deity of the harpy tribe; she embitters everything she touches.

Ever since the evening that Julien had witnessed the crossing of the brook by Reine and Claudet, a secret poison had run through his veins, and embittered every moment of his life.  Neither the glowing sun of June, nor the glorious development of the woods had any charm for him.  In vain did the fields display their golden treasures of ripening corn; in vain did the pale barley and the silvery oats wave their luxuriant