Claudet was too much in love to remain satisfied with empty words; he would require solid reasons; and the only conclusive one which would convince him, without wounding his self-love, was exactly the one which the young girl could not give him.

She was, therefore, doomed to send Claudet away with the impression that he had been jilted by a heartless and unprincipled coquette.

And yet something must be done.

The grand chasserot had been too long already in the toils; there was something barbarously cruel in not freeing him from his illusions.
In this troubled state of mind, Reine gazed appealingly at the silent witnesses of her distress.

She heard a voice within her saying to the tall, vaulted ash, "Inspire me!" to the little rose-colored centaurea of the wayside, "Teach me a charm to cure the harm I have done!" But the woods, which in former days had been her advisers and instructors, remained deaf to her invocation.