d over to him from her hair, this spark burst out into a
mighty flame, and he suffered tortures such as he had never known
before. And then her apparent estrangement from him increased his
anguish, for although he did not know whether it were disinclination to
him personally, or the calm contempt of the Count's daughter for her
father's poor retainer which closed her lips and kept her eyes averted,
he had leisure enough in these silent hours to estimate with miserable
accuracy the social gulf between them, and the duty of crushing every
foolish hope. Then, again, his thoughts turned to conjectures as to
what possessor he would have to make over the jewel entrusted to him,
whether her hand would be given away without her heart, or whether her
father in the gloom of sickness had so yearned for his only child, as
suddenly to recall her to his deserted home. Even were it so, would his
case be less hopeless if he had longer time to learn the full
preciousness of the treasure which must at length be surrendered to
another?

Thus he sank more and more into a profound melancholy, so that even
Garcinde, who was not herself joyous, remarked it, and asked him
whether he were suffering, whether he would rest and refresh himself
with a draught of wine? Geoffroy, crimsoning to the roots of his hair,
excused himself for his absent mood, accounted for it by a sleepless
night, and did all he could to appear more cheerful. And at noon when
they halted in a wood beside a spring to recruit themselves with the
provisions with which the pious sisterhood had laden the baggage-horse,
his spirits in a measure revived, while Aigleta, who had long got over
her fit of sullenness, recovered the audacity of her mood, and
flavoured the mid-day meal with the drollest freaks of fancy. Garcinde
sat in the shadow of a tall black-thorn, and patiently endured that the
little witch who could not rest a moment, should adorn the whole party
with garlands, even to the servant and the grazing horses, singing
merry songs the while, not always of spiritual import, at which even
the servant laughed, so that the young Countess rose with a grave air,
removed the wreath from her brow, and proposed that they should ride on
again. The last to rise from the green grass was Geoffroy; to him the
spot seemed a Paradise where he would willingly have dreamed his days
away, yet when he lifted his cousin into her saddle, he did not dare to
bestow on the little foot that she pl