"What were you doing yesterday, Armand, in the disguise of a peasant at the window of a little cottage about half a mile from hence? If my horse had not started, I was coming to ask if you were feeding your sheep."
"My husband in the disguise of a peasant!" exclaimed Nathalie, fixing her eyes upon Armand in amazement.
"Oh! Edward has made a mistake," replied the captain, endeavouring to conceal a visible embarrassment; "he must have taken somebody else for me."
"Very likely," said the young man, hurt at the impression which his words had made upon Nathalie, and perceiving that he had been guilty of an indiscretion; "I must have been deceived."
"How was the man dressed?" asked Nathalie. "Where was the cottage?"
"Really I know the country so little, I should have some difficulty in finding the spot. As for the man, he had on a blue smock-frock, with a sort of cap on his head. I don't know what could have put it into my head that it was the captain, as it is not the carnival."
Madame d'Apremont said no more on the subject, but remained persuaded that it was her husband. The assumption of a disguise proved that he was engaged in some extraordinary intrigue, and in a flood of tears poor Nathalie complained of the bitterness of her lot in having married a man of mysteries.
Whether secrets of this nature are the only ones which women can keep, far be it from me to decide; but certain it is that they always connect some infidelity with those of our sex. Madame d'Apremont did not form an exception to this general observation, and in a fit of jealousy she begged to return to town. Her husband consented immediately, and in a few days they were in Paris. Here the captain again betrayed the same symptoms of discontent, until one day he said to his wife, "My dear, a walk after dinner does me a great deal of good. During the latter part of our stay in the country I was quite well in consequence. You can easily conceive that an old sailor wants exercise, and that he cannot remain cooped up in a room or a theatre all the evening."
"Oh! very easily," replied Nathalie, biting her lips with spleen; "go and take your walk, if it does you good."