ith 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!"

He jerked out his sentences with unrestrained frenzy. He seemed hardly
to know what he was saying, or that he had a listener. Claudet stood
contemplating him in sullen silence: "Aha!" thought he, with bitter
resignation; "I have sounded you at last. I know what is in the bottom
of your heart."

Manette, bringing in the breakfast, interrupted their colloquy, and both
assumed an air of indifference, according to a tacit understanding that
a prudent amount of caution should be observed in her presence. They
ate hurriedly, and as soon as the cloth was removed, and they were
again alone, Julien, glancing with an indefinable expression at Claudet,
muttered savagely:

"Well! what do you decide?"

"I will tell you later," responded the other, briefly.

He quitted the room abruptly, told Manette that he would not be home
until late, and strode out across the fields, his dog following. He had
taken his gun as a blind, but it was useless for Montagnard to raise
his bark; Claudet allowed the hares to scamper away with out sending a
single shot after them. He was busy inwardly recalling the details
of the conversation he had had with his cousin. The situation now was
simplified Julien was in love with Reine, and was vainly combating his
overpowering passion. What reason had he for concealing his love?
What motive or reasoning had induced him, when he was already secretly
enamored of the girl, to push Claudet in front and interfere to procure
her acceptance of him as a fiance? This point alone remained obscure.
Was Julien carrying out certain theories of the respect due his position
in society, and did he fear to contract a misalliance by marrying a mere
farmer's daughter? Or did he, with his usual timidity and distrust of
himself, dread being refused by Reine, and, half through pride, half
through backward ness, keep away for fear of a humiliating rejection?
With de Buxieres's proud and suspicious nature, each of these
suppositions was equally likely. The conclusion most undeniable was,
that notwithstanding his set ideas and his moral cowardice, Julien had
an ardent and over powering love for M