“That is not all.  Not only does Reine not love me, but she loves some one else.”

Julien changed color; the blood coursed over his cheeks, his forehead, his ears; he drooped his head.

“Did she tell you so?” he murmured, at last, feebly.

“She did not, but I guessed it.  Her heart is won, and I think I know by whom.”

Claudet had uttered these last words slowly and with a painful effort, at the same time studying Julien’s countenance with renewed inquiry.  The latter became more and more troubled, and his physiognomy expressed both anxiety and embarrassment.

“Whom do you suspect?” he stammered.

“Oh!” replied Claudet, employing a simple artifice to sound the obscure depth of his cousin’s heart, “it is useless to name the person; you do not know him.”

“A stranger?”

Julien’s countenance had again changed.  His hands were twitching nervously, his lips compressed, and his dilated pupils were blazing with anger, instead of triumph, as before.

“Yes; a stranger, a clerk in the iron-works at Grancey, I think.”

“You think!—­you think!” cried Julien, fiercely, “why don’t you have more definite information before you accuse Mademoiselle Vincart of such treachery?”

He resumed pacing the hall, while his interlocutor, motionless, remained silent, and kept his eyes steadily upon him.

“It is not possible,” resumed Julien, “Reine can not have played us such a trick!  When I spoke to her for you, it was so easy to say she was already betrothed!”

“Perhaps,” objected Claudet, shaking his head, “she had reasons for not letting you know all that was in her mind.”

“What reasons?”

“She doubtless believed at that time that the man she preferred did not care for her.  There are some people who, when they are vexed, act in direct contradiction to their own wishes.  I have the idea that Reine accepted me only for want of some one better, and afterward, being too openhearted to dissimulate for any length of time, she thought better of it, and sent me about my business.”

“And you,” interrupted Julien, sarcastically, “you, who had been accepted as her betrothed, did not know better how to defend your rights than to suffer yourself to be ejected by a rival, whose intentions, even, you have not clearly ascertained!”

“By Jove! how could I help it?  A fellow that takes an unwilling bride is playing for too high stakes.  The moment I found there was another she preferred, I had but one course before me—­to take myself off.”

“And you call that loving!” shouted de Buxieres, “you call that losing your heart!  God in heaven! if I had been in your place, how differently I should have acted!  Instead of leaving, with piteous protestations, I should have stayed near Reine, I should have surrounded her with tenderness.  I should have expressed my passion with so much force that its flame should pass from my burning soul to hers, and she would have been forced to love me!  Ah!  If I had only thought! if I had dared! how different it would have been!”