"And yet," he exclaimed, "and yet, when my stay or my departure hung upon a single word from your lips, you gave me to understand that you had not received those signs of affection as signs of affection; that you looked upon them but as the natural effect of my witnessing your restoration to life, when I thought you dead." "Oh, Charles!" exclaimed Marie de Clairvaut, with a slight smile, "could you not pardon and understand such small hypocrisy as that? Did you not know that woman's heart is shy, and seeks many a hiding-place, even from the pursuit of one it loves?" "I never loved but you, Marie," replied the Count, "and I am sadly ignorant, I fear, of woman's heart. Nevertheless, upon those few words and that moment depended my fate." "I knew not that," cried Marie de Clairvaut, eagerly; "I knew not that, or, upon my honour, I would have been more sincere: but what was it, Charles, made you take so sudden a resolution? what was it made you leave me, without a reply, in the hands of those who have striven constantly ever since to make me believe that you cared not for me?" "I will tell you all," replied her lover; and, pouring forth in eloquent words all the passion of his heart towards her, he told her how his love had grown upon him, how it had increased each hour; and making that the main subject of his tale, he told but as adjuncts to it the pain which his brother's conduct had inflicted upon him, and all the signs of rivalry which he had remarked. He then spoke of his conversation with the Abbé de Boisguerin on their way to visit the Count de Morly; and he told how agonised were all his feelings--how terrible was the struggle in his heart,--and what was the resolution that he took, to ascertain whether her affections were really gained, and by the result to shape his conduct. He next spoke of his conversation with her immediately preceding his departure, and of the words which had led him to believe that she was unconscious of his love, and did not return it. As she listened, the tears rose in her eyes, and, laying her soft fair hand on his, she said, "Forgive me, Charles! oh, forgive me! but do believe that there is not another woman on all the earth who would not have done the same." "Alas! dear Marie," he replied, "in such knowledge you have but a child to deal with." "Oh, be so ever, Charles!" she cried, clasping her hands and looking up in his face. "There may be women who would love you less for being so; but I trust and hope that you will never love any one but Marie de Clairvaut, and she will value your love all the more for its being, and having ever been, entirely her own. But you were speaking of the Abbé de Boisguerin, Charles--you have told me of his conversation with you--I saw, when I was at Montsoreau, that you loved and esteemed him."--She paused, and hesitated. "I fear," she added, "that what I must speak, that what I ought to tell you, may pain and grieve you:--I doubt that man, Charles--I more than doubt him."