"If it is that I love Brulette and value her token," replied Huriel, "you know all that I know myself; but you cannot know more, for I am not even sure of her friendship, and as for anything else--but that's neither here nor there. I want to tell you the ill-luck that brought me back here. I did not wish Brulette to see me, neither did I mean to speak to her, because I saw the misery Joseph endured on my account. But I knew Joseph had not the strength to protect her, and that Malzac was shrewd and tricky enough to escape you. So I came at the beginning of the dance, and kept out of sight under the trees, meaning to depart without being seen, if Malzac did not make his appearance. You know the rest until the moment when we took the sticks. At that moment I was angry, I confess it, but it couldn't have been otherwise unless I were a saint in Paradise. And yet my only thought was to give a lesson to my enemy, and to stop him from saying, especially while Brulette was here, that because I was gentle and patient I was timid as a hare. You saw that my father, sick of such talk, did not object to my proving myself a man; but there! ill-luck surely pursues me, when in my first fight and almost at my first blow--ah! Tiennet, there is no use saying I was driven into it, or that I feel within me kind and humane; that is no consolation for having a fatal hand. A man is a man, no matter how foul-mouthed and ill-behaved he be. There was little or no good in that one, but he might have mended, and I have sent him to his account before he had come to repentance. Tiennet, I am sick of a muleteer's life; I agree with Brulette that it is not easy for a God-fearing man to be one of them and maintain his own conscience and the respect of others. I am obliged to stay in the craft for some time longer, owing to engagements which I have made; but you may rely upon it, I shall give up the business as soon as possible, and find another that is quiet and decent." "That is what you want me to tell Brulette, isn't it?" I said. "No," replied Huriel, with much decision, "not unless Joseph gets over his love and his illness so entirely as to give her up. I love Joseph as much as you all love him; besides, he told me his secret, and asked my advice and support; I will not deceive him, nor undermine him." "But Brulette does not want him as a lover or a husband, and perhaps he had better know it as soon as possible. I'll take upon myself to reason with him, if the others dare not, for there is somebody in your house who could make Joseph happy, and he never could be happy with Brulette. The longer he waits and the more he flatters himself she will love him, the harder the blow will seem; instead of which, if he opens his eyes to the true attachment he might find elsewhere--"