"I know that I judge your heart right, dear Isabel," replied Bernard de Rohan, "when I say he would find it hard to make you forget that name; and yet I have had warnings within the last two days of many a dark and evil scheme, it would seem, against your peace and mine. A vague hint has been given me that one whom I know to be brave, and whom the world holds to be honest; one who was once my particular friend, and my comrade in many a day of difficulty, and strife, and peril; one who, I know, must be well aware, from many things that I have casually said in thoughtless freedom of heart, that you and I are linked together by promises that can never be broken, has been labouring hard to supplant me in your affection. Yet I will not believe them, Isabel; I will not believe, in the first place, that you would hear one word on such a score from any man. Neither will I believe--though he has certainly lingered strangely away from the army; though he has changed, I may say, marvellously, and from a gay, rash, thoughtless youth, become a cautious, calculating, somewhat impenetrable man--I will not believe that Adrian de Meyrand would do me wrong. No, no, I will trust him still." "Trust him not, Bernard! trust him not!" replied Isabel. "Trust him not, Bernard! I, at least, know what he is. You say that your Isabel," she continued, gazing on him tenderly, "would not hear one word of love spoken by any other lips than your own. You do her right, dear Bernard. She would not, if she could help it; and even when against her will, against remonstrance and anger, she has been forced to hear such words, she has scarce forgiven herself for what she could not avoid, and has reproached herself for that which was forced upon her. Do you, too, reproach her, Bernard?" "Oh no," he replied, holding her to his heart, and gazing into the pure bright eyes, which seemed, as they were, deep wells of innocence and truth. "Oh no, dear Isabel; what was done unwillingly needs no reproach: but how was this? Tell me all! De Meyrand, then, has wronged me?" "If he knew of your love for me, he has," replied Isabel de Brienne; "but promise me, Bernard, that no rash or hasty act will make me regret having spoken to you openly, and I will tell you all." "None shall, my Isabel," replied her lover. "It is only dangerous rivals, or insolent ones, that require the sword of a brave man. De Meyrand is not the one, and probably may never be the other. Speak, dear one! I must hear all."