“Poor fellow!” said Henri, “if adversity will teach him, he is likely to get his lesson now.  Did he part quietly with you, Agatha, on the day before we started to Saumur?”

“Anything but quietly,” said she.  “I would not tell you all he said, for on the eve of a battle in which you were to fight side by side, I did not wish to make you angry with your friend and companion:  but had a raging madman, just escaped from his keepers, come to offer me his hand, his conduct could not have been worse than Adolphe Denot’s.”

“Was he violent with you, Agatha?”

“He did not offer to strike me, nor yet to touch me, if you mean that:  but he threatened me; and that in such awful sounding, and yet ridiculous language, that you would hardly know whether to laugh or to be angry if I could repeat it.”

“What did he say, Agatha?”

“Say! it would be impossible for me to tell you; he swung his arms like a country actor in a village barn, and declared that if he were not killed at Saumur, he would carry me away in spite of all that my friends could do to hinder him.”

“Poor fellow! poor Adolphe!” said Henri.

“You are not sorry I refused him?  You would, indeed, have had to say, poor Agatha! had I done otherwise.”

“I am not sorry that you refused him, but I am sorry you could not love him.”

“Why you say yourself he is mad:  would you wish me to love a madman?”

“It is love that has made him mad.  Adolphe is not like other men; his passions are stronger; his feelings more acute; his regrets more poignant.”

“He should control his passions as other men must do,” said Agatha:  “all men who do not, are madmen.”  She remained silent for a few moments, and then added, “you are right in saying that love has made him mad; but it is the meanest of all love that has done so—­it is self-love.”

“I think you are too hard upon him, Agatha; but it is over now, and cannot be helped.”

“What did he say to you, Henri, when he left you in Saurnur?”

“His name had been mentioned you know in the council as one of the leaders:  Bonchamps, I believe, proposed it; but Charles objected, and named Charette in his place, and Cathelineau and the rest agreed to it.  This angered Adolphe, and no wonder, for he is ambitious, and impatient of neglect.  I wish they would have let him been named instead of me, but they would not, and when the list was finished, he was not on it.  He got up and said something; I hardly know what, but he complained of Stofflet being one of the Generals; and then Charles rebuked him, and Adolphe in a passion left the room.”

“And you followed him?” asked Agatha.

“Yes, I followed him; but he was like a raging madman.  I don’t know how it was; but instead of complaining about the Generals, he began complaining about you.  I don’t know exactly whether I ought to tell you what he said—­indeed I had not intended to have done so.”