e they kept to each other
in that lonely path! With what animation they conversed! with what
abandon she allowed herself to be carried in his arms! All that indicates
an intimacy of long standing, and explains a good many things!"

He recalled Reine's visit to the chateau, and how cleverly she had
managed to inform him of the parentage existing between Claudet and the
deceased Claude de Buxieres; how she had by her conversation raised a
feeling of pity in his mind for Claudet; and a desire to repair the
negligence of the deceased.

"How could I be so blind!" thought Julien, with secret scorn of himself;
"I did not see anything, I comprehended none of their artifices! They
love each other, that is sure, and I have been playing throughout the
part of a dupe. I do not blame him. He was in love, and allowed himself
to be persuaded. But she! whom I thought so open, so true, so loyal! Ah!
she is no better than others of her class, and she was coquetting with me
in order to insure her lover a position! Well! one more illusion is
destroyed. Ecclesiastes was right. 'Inveni amarivrem morte mulierem',
'woman is more bitter than death'!"

Twilight had come, and it was already dark in the forest. Slowly and
reluctantly, Julien descended the slope leading to the chateau, and the
gloom of the woods entered his heart.

CHAPTER VI

LOVE BY PROXY

Jealousy is a maleficent deity of the harpy tribe; she embitters
everything she touches.

Ever since the evening that Julien had witnessed the crossing of the
brook by Reine and Claudet, a secret poison had run through his veins,
and embittered every moment of his life. Neither the glowing sun of June,
nor the glorious development of the woods had any charm for him. In vain
did the fields display their golden treasures of ripening corn; in vain
did the pale barley and the silvery oats wave their luxuriant growth
against the dark background of the woods; all these fairylike effects of
summer suggested only prosaic and misanthropic reflections in Julien's
mind. He thought of the tricks, the envy and hatred that the possession
of these little squares of ground brought forth among their rapacious
owners. The prolific exuberance of forest vegetation was an
exemplification of the fierce and destructive activity of the blind
forces of Nature. All the earth was a hateful theatre for the continual
enactment of bloody and monotonous dramas; the worm consuming the plant;
the bird mangling t