“You unhappy?” exclaimed the magistrate at length, “and through me? Claire, you are cruel! In heaven’s name, what have I done? What is the matter? Speak! Anything rather then this anxiety which is killing me.” He knelt before her on the gravelled walk, and again made an attempt to take her hand. She repulsed him with an imploring gesture. “Let me weep,” said she: “I suffer so much, you are going to hate me, I feel it. Who knows! you will, perhaps, despise me, and yet I swear before heaven that I never expected what you have just said to me, that I had not even a suspicion of it!” M. Daburon remained upon his knees, awaiting his doom. “Yes,” continued Claire, “you will think you have been the victim of a detestable coquetry. I see it now! I comprehend everything! It is not possible, that, without a profound love, a man can be all that you have been to me. Alas! I was but a child. I gave myself up to the great happiness of having a friend! Am I not alone in the world, and as if lost in a desert? Silly and imprudent, I thoughtlessly confided in you, as in the best, the most indulgent of fathers.” These words revealed to the unfortunate magistrate the extent of his error. The same as a heavy hammer, they smashed into a thousand fragments the fragile edifice of his hopes. He raised himself slowly, and, in a tone of involuntary reproach, he repeated,--“Your father!” Mademoiselle d’Arlange felt how deeply she had wounded this man whose intense love she dare not even fathom. “Yes,” she resumed, “I love you as a father! Seeing you, usually so grave and austere, become for me so good, so indulgent, I thanked heaven for sending me a protector to replace those who are dead.” M. Daburon could not restrain a sob; his heart was breaking. “One word,” continued Claire,--“one single word, would have enlightened me. Why did you not pronounce it! It was with such happiness that I leant on you as a child on its mother; and with what inward joy I said to myself, ‘I am sure of one friend, of one heart into which runs the overflow of mine!’ Ah! why was not my confidence greater? Why did I withhold my secret from you? I might have avoided this fearful calamity. I ought to have told you long since. I no longer belong to myself freely and with happiness, I have given my life to another.” To hover in the clouds, and suddenly to fall rudely to the earth, such was M. Daburon’s fate; his sufferings are not to be described. “Far better to have spoken,” answered he; “yet no. I owe to your silence, Claire, six months of delicious illusions, six months of enchanting dreams. This shall be my share of life’s happiness.” The last beams of closing day still enabled the magistrate to see Mademoiselle d’Arlange. Her beautiful face had the whiteness and the immobility of marble. Heavy tears rolled silently down her cheeks. It seemed to M. Daburon that he was beholding the frightful spectacle of a weeping statue.