At the first words that fell from M.de Buxieres's lips, she felt a presentiment of misfortune.
"Claudet ?" murmured she.
"He is dead," replied Julien, almost inaudibly, "he fought bravely and was killed at Montebello." The young girl remained motionless, and for a moment de Buxieres thought she would be able to bear, with some degree of composure, this announcement of the death in a foreign country of a man whom she had refused as a husband.

Suddenly she turned aside, took two or three steps, then leaning her head and folded arms on the trunk of an adjacent tree, she burst into a passion of tears.

The convulsive movement of her shoulders and stifled sobs denoted the violence of her emotion.

M.de Buxieres, alarmed at this outbreak, which he thought exaggerated, felt a return of his old misgivings.

He was jealous now of the dead man whom she was so openly lamenting.