Lucan handed her his handkerchief. She wiped her hands gravely; then, as she returned the handkerchief with her right hand, she raised herself on tiptoe and held her left hand up to the level of his face: "There! now; don't scold any more!" Lucan kissed the hand. "The other now," she said again. "Please don't turn so pale, sir!" Monsieur Lucan affected not to have heard these last words, and came down abruptly from his horse. "I must help you to mount," he said, in a dry and harsh voice. She was putting on her gloves with downcast look. Suddenly raising her head and looking at him with fixed gaze: "What a miserable wretch I am, am I not?" she said. "No," said Lucan; "but what an unhappy being!" She leaned against one of the trees that shaded the spring, her head partially thrown back and one hand over her eyes. "Come!" said Lucan. She obeyed, and he assisted her to get on her horse. They rode out of the wood without uttering another word, made their way to the road, and soon overtook the cavalcade. As soon as he had recovered from the anguish of that scene, Monsieur de Lucan did not hesitate to think that the departure of Julia and of her husband must be the immediate and inevitable consequence of it; but when he came to seek some means of bringing about their sudden departure, his mind became lost in difficulties that he could not solve. What motive could he indeed offer to justify, in the eyes of Clotilde and of Monsieur de Moras, a determination so novel and so unexpected? It was now the middle of August, and it had been agreed for a long time that the entire family should return to Paris on the first of September. The very proximity of the time fixed upon for the general departure would only serve to make the pretext invoked to explain this sudden separation appear more unlikely. It was almost impossible that it should not awaken in the mind of Clotilde, and in that of the count, irreparable suspicions and a light fatal to the happiness of both. The remedy seemed indeed more to be dreaded than the evil itself; for, if the evil was great, it was at least unknown to those whose lives and whose hearts it would have shattered, and it could still be hoped that it might remain so forever. Monsieur de Lucan thought for a moment of going away himself; but it was still more impossible to justify his departure than it was that of Julia's.