"No, Daphnè, no!—I never will leave you. I declare it before heaven and earth, I will conduct my cousin to the Chateau, and in an hour I will be with you to dry your tears, and to ask pardon of you on my knees. Moreover, I am not to blame, I call my cousin to witness. Is it not true, Clotilde, that I don't love you?"
"'Pon my word, cousin, you have certainly told me you loved me; but as men generally say the contrary of what is the fact, I am willing to believe you don't. But I beg you'll not incommode yourself on my account; I can find my way to the Chateau perfectly well alone."
She walked away, hiding her chagrin under the most easy and careless air in the world.
"I must run after her," said Hector, "or she will tell every thing to my father. Adieu Daphnè; in two hours I shall be at the Cottage of the Vines, and more in love than ever."
"Adieu, then," murmured Daphnè in a dying voice; "adieu," she repeated on seeing him retire; "adieu!—as for me, in two hours, I shall not be at the Cottage of Vines."
CHAPTER VI
She returned to the cottage of old Babet. On seeing the little chamber she had taken so much pains to ornament with flowers and blossoms, she sank her head upon her bosom. "Poor roses!" she murmured—"little I thought when I gathered you, that my heart would be the first to wither!"
The poor old woman came in to her. "What! crying?" she said— "do people weep at eighteen?"
Daphnè threw herself into Babet's arms, and sobbed.
"He has deceived me—left me for his cousin. I must go. You will tell him that he has behaved cruelly, that I am——but no!—tell him that I forgive him."