Buckingham has given you a very troublesome commission in
offering me as a companion for your promenade. Your heart is elsewhere,
and it is with the greatest difficulty you can be charitable enough to
lend me your attention. Confess truly; it would be unfair on your part,
vicomte, not to admit it."

"Madame, I do confess it."

She looked at him steadily. He was so noble and so handsome in his
bearing, his eyes revealed so much gentleness, candor, and resolution,
that the idea could not possibly enter her mind that he was either
rudely discourteous, or a mere simpleton. She only perceived, clearly
enough, that he loved another woman, and not herself, with the whole
strength of his heart. "Ah! I now understand you," she said; "you have
left your heart behind you in France." Raoul bowed. "The duke is aware
of your affection?"

"No one knows it," replied Raoul.

"Why, therefore, do you tell me? Nay, answer me."

"I cannot."

"It is for me, then, to anticipate an explanation; you do not wish to
tell me anything, because you are now convinced that I do not love the
duke; because you see that I possibly might have loved you; because you
are a gentleman of noble and delicate sentiments; and because, instead
of accepting, even were it for the mere amusement of the passing hour,
a hand which is almost pressed upon you; and because, instead of meeting
my smiles with a smiling lip, you, who are young, have preferred to tell
me, whom men have called beautiful, 'My heart is over the sea--it is in
France.' For this, I thank you, Monsieur de Bragelonne; you are, indeed,
a noble-hearted, noble-minded man, and I regard you all the more for it,
as a friend only. And now let us cease speaking of myself, and talk of
your own affairs. Forget that I have ever spoken to you of myself, tell
me why you are sad, and why you have become more than usually so during
these past four days?"

Raoul was deeply and sensibly moved by these sweet and melancholy tones;
and as he could not, at the moment, find a word to say, the young girl
again came to his assistance.

"Pity me," she said. "My mother was born in France, and I can truly
affirm that I, too, am French in blood, as well as in feeling; but the
leaden atmosphere and characteristic gloom of England seem to weigh
upon me. Sometimes my dreams are golden-hued and full of wonderful
enjoyments, when suddenly a mist rises and overspreads my fancy,
blotting them out forever. Such, indeed, is t