atter for you?"

"I should be very glad. It would be doing me a great service. It would be
adding one more kindness to those I have already received, and some day I
hope to make it all up to you."

The next morning, according to agreement, Julien accompanied Claudet to
Auberive, where Maitre Arbillot drew up the deed of gift, and had it at
once signed and recorded. Afterward the young men adjourned to breakfast
at the inn. The meal was brief and silent. Neither seemed to have any
appetite. As soon as they had drunk their coffee, they turned back on the
Vivey road; but, when they had got as far as the great limetree, standing
at the entrance to the forest, Julien touched Claudet lightly on the
shoulder.

"Here," said he, "we must part company. You will return to Vivey, and I
shall go across the fields to La Thuiliere. I shall return as soon as I
have had an interview with Mademoiselle Vincart. Wait for me at the
chateau."

"The time will seem dreadfully long to me," sighed Claudet; "I shall not
know how to dispose of my body until you return."

"Your affair will be all settled within two or three hours from now. Stay
near the window of my room, and you will catch first sight of me coming
along in the distance. If I wave my hat, it will be a sign that I bring a
favorable answer."

Claudet pressed his hand; they separated, and Julien descended the newly
mown meadow, along which he walked under the shade of trees scattered
along the border line of the forest.

The heat of the midday sun was tempered by a breeze from the east, which
threw across the fields and woods the shadows of the white fleecy clouds.
The young man, pale and agitated, strode with feverish haste over the
short-cropped grass, while the little brooklet at his side seemed to
murmur a flute-like, soothing accompaniment to the tumultuous beatings of
his heart. He was both elated and depressed at the prospect of submitting
his already torn and lacerated feelings to so severe a trial. The thought
of beholding Reine again, and of sounding her feelings, gave him a
certain amount of cruel enjoyment. He would speak to her of love--love
for another, certainly--but he would throw into the declaration he was
making, in behalf of another, some of his own tenderness; he would have
the supreme and torturing satisfaction of watching her countenance, of
anticipating her blushes, of gathering the faltering avowal from her
lips. He would once more drink of the intoxic