of the cousin showed up clearly against the dark mass of shrubbery.
I should have liked to have stopped him, the wretch, for his intention
was evident; he was making his way toward the thicket in which the little
queen had disappeared. I should have liked to shout to him, "You are a
villain; you shall go no farther." But had I really any right to act
thus? I was silent, but I coughed, however, loud enough to be heard by
him.

He suddenly paused in his uneasy walk, looked round on all sides with
visible anxiety, then, seized by I know not what impulse, darted toward
the pavilion. I was overwhelmed. What ought I to do? Warn my friend,
my childhood's companion? Yes, no doubt, but I felt ashamed to pour
despair into the mind of this good fellow and to cause a horrible
exposure. "If he can be kept in ignorance," I said to myself, "and then
perhaps I am wrong--who knows? Perhaps this rendezvous is due to the
most natural motive possible."

I was seeking to deceive myself, to veil the evidence of my own eyes,
when suddenly one of the house doors opened noisily, and Oscar--Oscar
himself, in all the disorder of night attire, his hair rumpled, and his
dressing-gown floating loosely, passed before my window. He ran rather
than walked; but the anguish of his heart was too plainly revealed in the
strangeness of his movements. He knew all. I felt that a mishap was
inevitable. "Behold the outcome of all his happiness, behold the bitter
poison enclosed in so fair a vessel!" All these thoughts shot through my
mind like arrows. It was necessary above all to delay the explosion,
were it only for a moment, a second, and, beside myself, without giving
myself time to think of what I was going to say to him, I cried in a
sharp imperative tone: