"I did not expect this of you, Monsieur de Buxieres!" "Forgive me!" faltered Julien, whose heart smote him at the sight of her tears; "I have behaved like a miserable sinner and a brute! It was a moment of madness--forget it and forgive me!" "Nobody ever treated me with disrespect before," returned the young girl, in a suffocated voice; "I was wrong to allow you any familiarity, that is all.

It shall not happen to me again!" Julien remained mute, overpowered with shame and remorse.

Suddenly, in the stillness around, rose the voices of the dancers returning and singing the refrain of the rondelay: I had a rose-- On my heart it lay Will those who are young Be married, or nay?
Yea, yea! "There are our people," said Reine, softly, "I am going to them; adieu--do not follow me!" She left the but and hastened toward the furnace, while Julien, stunned with the rapidity with which this unfortunate scene had been enacted, sat down on one of the benches, a prey to confused feelings of shame and angry mortification.

No, certainly, he did not intend to follow her! He had no desire to show himself in public with this young girl whom he had so stupidly insulted, and in whose face he never should be able to look again.

Decidedly, he did not understand women, since he could not even tell a virtuous girl from a frivolous coquette! Why had he not been able to see that the good-natured, simple familiarity of Reine Vincart had nothing in common with the enticing allurements of those who, to use Claudet's words, had "thrown their caps over the wall." How was it that he had not read, in those eyes, pure as the fountain's source, the candor and uprightness of a maiden heart which had nothing to conceal.