His conversation with Monsieur De Brives lasted half an hour, and some time before it was over, Madame De Brecy quietly left the hall, while Agnes remained embroidering a coat of arms. At length the two gentlemen issued from the cabinet, and Monsieur De Brives took his way at once to the room where Agnes was seated. Jean Charost, for his part, went down to the lower hall, which had been left vacant while his followers sported in the castle court. There, with a grave, stern air, and his arms crossed upon his chest, Jean Charost paced up and down the pavement, pausing once to look out into the court upon the gay games going on; but he turned away without even a smile, bending his eyes thoughtfully upon the old stones as if he would have counted their number or spied out their flaws. The time seemed very long to him, and yet he would not interrupt the lover in his suit. At length, however, he heard a rapid step coming, and the next instant Monsieur De Brives entered the hall, as if to pass through it to the court. His face was deadly pale, and traces of strong emotion were in every line.
"Well," cried De Brecy, advancing to meet him; "she has accepted you--of course, she has accepted you."
De Brives only grasped his hand, and shook his head.
"Did you tell her you knew all?" asked De Brecy. "Did you tell her of your generous--"
"In vain--all in vain," said the young man; and, wringing De Brecy's hand hard in his, he broke away from him, and left the castle.
Jean Charost stood for an instant in the midst of the hall buried in deep thought, and then mounted the stairs to the room where he had left Agnes. He found her weeping bitterly; and going gently up to her, he seated himself beside her and took her hand. "Dear Agnes," he said, "you are weeping. You regret what you have done. It is not yet too late. Let me send after him. He has hardly yet left the castle."
"No, no--no!" cried Agnes, eagerly. "I do not regret what I have said, though I regret having given him pain--I regret to give pain to any thing. But I told him the truth."
"What did you tell him?" asked Jean Charost, perhaps indiscreetly.
Agnes's face glowed warmly, but she answered at once, "I told him I could not love him as a woman should love her husband."
"Bitter truth enough from such lips as those," said Jean Charost in a low tone.