f on the grass in the park. This was a refuge to me in
all my troubles. These mighty oaks, this moss which had clung to their
branches through the centuries, these pale, sweet-scented wild flowers,
emblems of secret sorrow, these were the friends of my childhood, and
these alone I had found the same in social as in savage life. I buried
my face in my hands; and I never remember having suffered more in any of
the calamities of my life, though some that I had to bear afterward
were very real. On the whole I ought to have accounted myself lucky, on
giving up the rough and perilous trade of a cut-throat, to find so many
unexpected blessings--affection, devotion, riches, liberty, education,
good precepts and good examples. But it is certain that, in order to
pass from a given state to its opposite, though it be from evil to
good, from grief to joy, from fatigue to repose, the soul of a man must
suffer; in this hour of birth of a new destiny all the springs of his
being are strained almost to breaking--even as at the approach of summer
the sky is covered with dark clouds, and the earth, all a-tremble, seems
about to be annihilated by the tempest.

At this moment my only thought was to devise some means of appeasing my
hatred of M. de la Marche without betraying and without even arousing
a suspicion of the mysterious bond which held Edmee in my power. Though
nothing was less respected at Roche-Mauprat than the sanctity of an
oath, yet the little reading I had had there--those ballads of chivalry
of which I have already spoken--had filled me with an almost romantic
love of good faith; and this was about the only virtue I had acquired
there. My promise of secrecy to Edmee was therefore inviolable in my
eyes.

"However," I said to myself, "I dare say I shall find some plausible
pretext for throwing myself upon my enemy and strangling him."

To confess the truth, this was far from easy with a man who seemed bent
on being all politeness and kindness.

Distracted by these thoughts, I forgot the dinner hour; and when I saw
the sun sinking behind the turrets of the castle I realized too late
that my absence must have been noticed, and that I could not appear
without submitting to Edmee's searching questions, and to the abbe's
cold, piercing gaze, which, though it always seemed to avoid mine, I
would suddenly surprise in the act of sounding the very depths of my
conscience.

I resolved not to return to the house till nightfall, an