f
discouraging me, you would hold out some hope to me, and advise me to
have patience. You never have loved me, confess now!"

By dint of this persistence, Reine by degrees lost her self-confidence.
She could realize how much Claudet was suffering, and she reproached
herself for the torture she was inflicting upon him. Driven into a
corner, and recognizing that the avowal he was asking for was the only
one that would drive him away, she hesitated no longer.

"Alas!" she murmured, lowering her eyes, "since you force me to tell you
some truths that I would rather have kept from you, I confess you have
guessed. I have a sincere friendship for you, but that is all. I have
concluded that to marry a person one ought to love him differently,
more than everything else in the world, and I feel that my heart is not
turned altogether toward you."

"No," said Claudet, bitterly, "it is turned elsewhere."

"What do you mean? I do not understand you."

"I mean that you love some one else."

"That is not true," she protested.

"You are blushing--a proof that I have hit the nail!"

"Enough of this!" cried she, imperiously.

"You are right. Now that you have said you don't want me any longer, I
have no right to ask anything further. Adieu!"

He turned quickly on his heel. Reine was conscious of having been too
hard with him, and not wishing him to go away with such a grief in his
heart, she sought to retain him by placing her hand upon his arm.

"Come, Claudet," said she, entreatingly, "do not let us part in anger.
It pains me to see you suffer, and I am sorry if I have said anything
unkind to you. Give me your hand in good fellowship, will you?"

But Claudet drew back with a fierce gesture, and glancing angrily at
Reine, he replied, rudely:

"Thanks for your regrets and your pity; I have no use for them." She
understood that he was deeply hurt; gave up entreating, and turned away
with eyes full of tears.

He remained motionless, his arms crossed, in the middle of the road.
After some minutes, he turned his head. Reine was already nothing more
than a dark speck against the gray of the increasing fog. Then he went
off, haphazard, across the pasture-lands. The fog was rising slowly, and
the sun, shorn of its beams, showed its pale face faintly through it.
To the right and the left, the woods were half hidden by moving white
billows, and Claudet walked between fluid walls of vapor. This hidden
sky, these veiled surroundings