Jean Oullier looked at him with a certain compassion; then, after a moment's silence he said:--
"Have you decided on a course?"
"No; but I hope that to-morrow a musket-ball will save me the necessity."
"Oh," said Jean Oullier, "you can't count on that; balls are so capricious,--they never go to those who call them."
"Ah, Monsieur Jean!" exclaimed Michel, shaking; "we are very unhappy."
"Yes, so it seems; you are making terrible trouble for yourselves, all of you. What you call love is nothing but unreasonableness. Good God! who could have told me that these two children, who thought of nothing but roaming the woods bravely and merrily with their father and me, would fall in love with the first hat that came in their way,--and that, too, when the man it covered was more of a girl in his sex than they were in theirs!"
"Alas! it is fatality, my good Jean."
"No," said the Vendéan, "you needn't blame fate; it was I. But come, as you haven't the nerve to face that foolish Bertha, and speak the truth, how do you expect to remain an honest man?"
"I shall do all I can to get nearer to Mary; you can count on me for that so long as you act in that direction."
"Who says anything about your keeping near to Mary? Poor child! she has more good sense than all of you. She cannot be your wife,--she told you so the other day, or rather the other night; and she was perfectly right,--only, her love for Bertha is carrying her too far. She is condemning herself to the torture she wishes to spare her sister; and that is what neither you nor I must allow."