"You need not be anxious, Tiennet. I have all the strength I want, and I shall not be ill again. I have learned one thing; and that is that frail bodies, to which God has given slender physical powers, are provided with a force of will which carries them farther than the vigorous health of others. I was not exaggerating when I told you over there that I became, as it were, a new man on seeing Huriel fight so boldly; and that I was wide awake in the night when I heard his voice saying to me, 'Come, cheer up! I am a man, and as long as you are not one you will count for nothing.' I want therefore to shake myself free of my poor nature, and return here some day as good to look at and better to hear than all Brulette's other lovers." "But," I said, "suppose she makes her choice before you return? She is going on nineteen, and for a girl as much courted as she is it is time to decide." "She will decide only between Huriel and me," answered Joseph, in a confident tone. "There is no one but him and myself who are capable of teaching her to love. Excuse me, Tiennet; I know, or at least I believe, that you dreamed of it." "Yes," I replied, "but I don't dream of it any longer." "Well for you!" said Joseph; "for you could never have been happy with her. She has tastes and ideas which don't belong to the ground she has grown in; she needs another wind to rock her; the one that blows here is not pure enough and it might wither her. She feels all this, though she may not know how to say it; and I tell you that unless Huriel is treacherous, I shall find her still free, a year or two hence." So saying, Joseph, as if wearied out by letting himself talk so much, dropped his head on his pillow and went to sleep. For the last hour I had been struggling to keep awake, for I was tired out myself. I slept soundly, and when at daybreak I called him he did not answer. I looked about, and he was gone without awaking any one. Brulette went the next day to see Mariton, to break the news to her, and find out what had passed between her and her son. She would not let me accompany her, and told me on her return that she could not get Mariton to say much, because her master Benoît was ill and even in some danger from congestion of the brain. I concluded, therefore, that the woman, being obliged to nurse her master, had not had time to talk with her son as much as he would have liked, and consequently he had become jealous, as his nature led him to be at such times. "That is very likely," said Brulette, "for the wiser Joseph gets through ambition the more exacting he becomes. I think I liked him better when he was simple and submissive as he used to be."