"That's the worst of you, Joseph; you were there with friends who took the place of those you left here in the same way—"
"Well, it is what I choose to do," he said, rather shortly; then in a milder tone he added: "Tiennet, Tiennet, there are some things one can tell, and others which force us to keep silence. You hurt me to-day in telling me I could never please Brulette."
"Joseph, I never said anything of the kind, for the reason that I don't know if you really care for her."
"You do know it," he replied; "and you blame me for not having opened my heart to you. But how could I? I am not one of those who tell their secrets willingly. It is my misfortune; I believe I have really no other illness than one sole idea, always stretching toward the same end, and always beaten back when it rises to my lips. Listen to me now, while I do feel able to talk; for God knows how soon I may fall mute again. I love; and I see plainly I am not loved. So many years have passed in this way (for I loved Brulette when we were little children) that I have grown accustomed to the pain. I have never flattered myself that I could please her; I have lived in the belief that she would never care for me. Lately, however, I saw by her coming to the Bourbonnais that I was something to her, and it gave me strength and the will not to die. But I soon perceived that she met some one over there who suited her better than I."
"I know nothing about it," I replied; "but if it were so, that some one you speak of gave you no ground for complaint or reproach."
"That is true," said Joseph; "and my anger is unjust,—all the more because Huriel, knowing Brulette to be an honest girl, and not being able to marry her so long as he remains in the fraternity of muleteers, has himself done what he could to separate from her. I can still hope to return to Brulette hereafter, more worthy of her than I have been; but I cannot bear to stay here now, for I am still nothing better than I was in the past. There is something in the manner and language of every one who speaks to me that seems to mean: 'You are sick, you are thin, you are ugly, you are feeble, you know nothing new and nothing good that can interest us in you.' Yes, Tiennet, what I tell you is exactly so; my mother seemed frightened by my face when she saw me, and she cried so when she kissed me that the pain of seeing her was greater than the joy. This evening, too, Brulette looked annoyed when I came in, and her grandfather, good and kind as he always is to me, seemed uneasy lest I should stay too long. Now don't tell me that I imagined all that. Like all those who speak little, I see much. My time has not yet come; I must go, and the sooner the better."
"I think you ought to take at least a few days' rest," I said; "for I fancy you mean to go to a great distance, and I do not think it friendly in you to give us unnecessary anxiety."
"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."