Sometimes when I talked in the strain of love, joy and pain would succeed each other on her face, sometimes they would seem to be present at the same moment. From the look of complete abandonment to happiness that sometimes, though never for long, shone on her features, I felt that she loved me, and that eventually her love would gain the victory. I continually tried to elicit an expression of her feelings in words. Sweet to me as was the frequent confession of her looks, I sought a confession in speech also. One afternoon, as we stood on a little spur that rose from the declivity below the chateau, and whence through a small opening between trees could be seen the river, the smiling plain, and afar the high-perched chateau of Clochonne, I asked her: "Why is it that when I speak of what most occupies my heart you become silent or sorrowful, or go suddenly from me?" With assumed lightness she replied: "Can a woman explain her capricious doings any more than a man can understand them? It is well known that we do unaccountable things." Not heeding this evasion, I went on: "I sometimes fear that you imagine some other barrier between us than the one of religion. Is it that some other gentleman--?" "Oh, no, monsieur!" she answered, quickly and earnestly, before I had time to finish the question. "Is there, then, some vow or girlish resolution?" She shook her head negatively in reply, but would not give me any more satisfaction. At last I said, abruptly, "Do you, then, wish me not to love you?" She looked at me first as if she would answer yes, and then as if she would answer no, and finally, after a sigh, she said: "Can we cause things by wishing?" Finally, as a last means of trying her, I said: "Mademoiselle, I have been thinking that it might be better if I were to go on alone to Guienne, and leave Blaise and my men to conduct you when you are able to follow." She regarded me strangely, first as if the suggestion were a welcome one, then,--while her brow darkened, and a kind of mental anguish forced itself into her expression,--as if the plan were not at all acceptable. "But you will not do that, monsieur?" was all that she said. I could but sigh in puzzlement, and abandon my attempt to make her tell her feelings. Sometimes I would suddenly turn my eyes towards her, and catch her looking at me with mingled tenderness and pity, as a man condemned to die might be looked on by the woman who loved him. At those times I thought that she had some fear or foreboding that I might yet fall a victim to the vengeance of those whom I had offended. Sometimes her look quite startled me, for it contained, besides a world of grief and pity, something of self-reproach. I then supposed that she blamed herself for allowing her fatigue to delay me in my departure from the province.