to me the hand of friendship, that I have decided to speak
frankly, and open my heart to you. I love you, Reine, and have loved you
for a long time. But I have been so accustomed to hide what I think,
I know so little how to conduct myself in the varying circumstances of
life, and I have so much mistrust of myself, that I never have dared to
tell you before now. This will explain to you my stupid behavior. I am
suffering the penalty to-day, for while I was hesitating, another took
my place; although he is dead, his shadow stands between us, and I know
that you love him still."

She listened to him with bent head and half-closed eyes, and her heart
began to beat violently.

"I never have loved him in the way you suppose," she replied, simply.

A gleam of light shot through Julien's melancholy blue eyes. Both
remained silent. The green pasture-lands, bathed in the full noonday
sun, were lying before them. The grasshoppers were chirping in the
bushes, and the skylarks were soaring aloft with their joyous songs.
Julien was endeavoring to extract the exact meaning from the reply he
had just heard. He was partly reassured, but some points had still to be
cleared up.

"But still," said he, "you are lamenting his loss."

A melancholy smile flitted for an instant over Reine's pure, rosy lips.

"Are you jealous of my tears?" said she, softly.

"Oh, yes!" he exclaimed, with sudden exultation, "I love you so entirely
that I can not help envying Claudet his share in your affections! If
his death causes you such poignant regret, he must have been nearer and
dearer to you than those that survive."

"You might reasonably suppose otherwise," replied she, almost in a
whisper, "since I refused to marry him."

He shook his head, seemingly unable to accept that positive statement.

Then Reine began to reflect that a man of his distrustful and despondent
temperament would, unless the whole truth were revealed to him, be
forevermore tormented by morbid and injurious misgivings. She knew he
loved her, and she wished him to love her in entire faith and security.
She recalled the last injunctions she had received from the Abbe Pernot,
and, leaning toward Julien, with tearful eyes and cheeks burning with
shame, she whispered in his ear the secret of her close relationship to
Claudet.

This painful and agitating confidence was made in so low a voice as to
be scarcely distinguished from the soft humming of the insects, or the
gentle tw