De Loubersac came closer to Wilhelmine, grew red as fire, and without daring to look her in the face, burst out:
"Listen, Wilhelmine! I would rather tell you everything.... Oh, you are going to think badly of me.... The truth is—our meeting is not accidental ... it is of set purpose on my part.... For the last two days I have been worried—preoccupied—jealous.... I am afraid of not being loved by you as I love you ... afraid that there is ... or was ... something between us—dividing us—someone."...
Wilhelmine looked at her lover with the eyes of an astonished child.
"I do not understand you," she murmured.
Mastering his emotion, de Loubersac decided to make a clean breast of it.
"I will be frank, Wilhelmine.... Your last words have increased my torture.... Have you not spoken of your dear dead, and must I learn that you are perhaps going to pray ... at the tomb of Captain Brocq?"
More and more astonished, Wilhelmine replied:
"And suppose I were going to do so? Should I be doing wrong to pray for the repose of the soul of the unfortunate Captain Brocq, who was one of my best friends?"
"Ah!" cried Henri de Loubersac: "Is it love you feel for him, then?" He looked so despairing that Wilhelmine, offended, hurt though she was by her lover's suspicions, pitied his anguish and reassured him:
"If you had been following me for some time past, you would have seen that I have been in the habit of going to this cemetery—have gone there regularly long before Captain Brocq's death—consequently."...