think I
was afraid of her?

"In the meantime, my mother had asked me what was the result of my
reflections on the subject of marriage; and I blushed with shame as I
told her that I was not disposed to marry as yet, as I felt too young
to accept the responsibility of a family. It was so; but, under other
circumstances, I should hardly have put in that plea. I was thus
hesitating, and thinking how and when I should be able to make an end of
it, when the war broke out. I felt naturally bound to offer my services.
I hastened to Boiscoran. They had just organized the volunteers of the
district; and they made me their captain. With them I joined the army
of the Loire. In my state of mind, war had nothing fearful for me:
every excitement was welcome that made me forget the past. There was,
consequently, no merit in my courage. Nevertheless, as the weeks passed,
and then the months, without my hearing a word about the Countess
Claudieuse, I began secretly to hope that she had forgotten me; and
that, time and absence doing their work, she was giving me up.

"When peace was made, I returned to Boiscoran; and the countess gave no
more signs of life now than before. I began to feel reassured, and to
recover possession of myself, when one day M. de Chandore invited me to
dinner. I went. I saw Miss Dionysia.

"I had known her already for some time; and the recollection of her had,
perhaps, had its influence upon my desire to quit the countess. Still I
had always had self-control enough to avoid her lest I should draw some
fatal vengeance upon her. When I was brought in contact with her by her
grandfather, I had no longer the heart to avoid her; and, on the day on
which I thought I read in her eyes that she loved me I made up my mind,
and I resolved to risk every thing.

"But how shall I tell you what I suffered, Magloire, and with what
anxiety I asked every evening when I returned to Boiscoran,--

"'No letter yet?'

"None came; and still it was impossible that the Countess Claudieuse
should not have heard of my marriage. My father had called on M. de
Chandore, and asked him for the hand of his grand-daughter for me. I had
been publicly acknowledged as her betrothed; and nothing was now to be
done but to fix the wedding-day.

"This silence frightened me."

Exhausted and out of breath, Jacque de Boiscoran paused here, pressing
both of his hands on his chest, as if to check the irregular beating of
his heart.

He was approac