"Yet no one about us has uttered one
word. Could it be Corentin? It is not his interest to speak. Who can
have come to this spot and accused me? Just loved, and already
abandoned! I sow attraction, and I reap contempt. Is it my perpetual
fate to see happiness and ever lose it?" Pangs hitherto unknown to her
wrung her heart, for she now loved truly and for the first time. Yet
she had not so wholly delivered herself to her lover that she could
not take refuge from her pain in the natural pride and dignity of a
young and beautiful woman. The secret of her love--a secret often kept
by women under torture itself--had not escaped her lips. Presently she
rose from her reclining attitude, ashamed that she had shown her
passion by her silent sufferings; she shook her head with a
light-hearted action, and showed a face, or rather a mask, that was gay
and smiling, then she raised her voice to disguise the quiver of it.
"Where are we?" she said to Captain Merle, who kept himself at a
certain distance from the carriage.
"About six miles from Fougeres, mademoiselle."
"We shall soon be there, shall we not?" she went on, to encourage a
conversation in which she might show some preference for the young
captain.
"A Breton mile," said Merle much delighted, "has the disadvantage of
never ending; when you are at the top of one hill you see a valley and
another hill.
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