"Perhaps you would call it a mere fancy—the enthusiasm of youth."
"It has a name, I suppose?"
"Certainly, but—"
"Is it sufficiently important, think you, to make us run the risk of being benighted on such roads as these?"
"Why, it is quite early in the day."
"But we have more than two leagues to go. Why will you not speak?—there cannot any great mystery."
"Well, perhaps not a mystery, exactly, but just one of those subjects on which we are usually reserved with others."
"So! so!" rejoined D'Effernay, with a little sneer. "Some love affair; some girl or another who pursues him, that he wants to get rid of."
"Nothing of the kind, I can assure you," replied the captain drily. "It could scarcely be more innocent. He wishes, in fact, to visit his friend's grave."
The listener's expression was one of scorn and anger. "It is worth the trouble certainly," he exclaimed, with a mocking laugh. "A charming sentimental pilgrimage, truly; and pray who is this beloved friend, over whose resting-place he must shed a tear and plant a forget-me-not? He told me he had never been in the neighborhood before."