The fog was rising slowly, and the sun, shorn of its beams, showed its pale face faintly through it.
To the right and the left, the woods were half hidden by moving white billows, and Claudet walked between fluid walls of vapor.

This hidden sky, these veiled surroundings, harmonized with his mental condition.

It was easier for him to hide his chagrin.

"Some one else! Yes; that's it.
She loves some other fellow! how was it I did not find that out the very first day ?" Then he recalled how Reine shrank from him when he solicited a caress; how she insisted on their betrothal being kept secret, and how many times she had postponed the date of the wedding.

It was evident that she had received him only in self-defence, and on the pleading of Julien de Buxieres.