"Your affair will be all settled within two or three hours from now.
Stay near the window of my room, and you will catch first sight of me
coming along in the distance. If I wave my hat, it will be a sign that I
bring a favorable answer."

Claudet pressed his hand; they separated, and Julien descended the newly
mown meadow, along which he walked under the shade of trees scattered
along the border line of the forest.

The heat of the midday sun was tempered by a breeze from the east, which
threw across the fields and woods the shadows of the white fleecy clouds.
The young man, pale and agitated, strode with feverish haste over the
short-cropped grass, while the little brooklet at his side seemed to
murmur a flute-like, soothing accompaniment to the tumultuous beatings of
his heart. He was both elated and depressed at the prospect of
submitting his already torn and lacerated feelings to so severe a trial.
The thought of beholding Reine again, and of sounding her feelings, gave
him a certain amount of cruel enjoyment. He would speak to her of love--
love for another, certainly--but he would throw into the declaration he
was making, in behalf of another, some of his own tenderness; he would
have the supreme and torturing satisfaction of watching her countenance,
of anticipating her blushes, of gathering the faltering avowal from her
lips. He would once more drink of the intoxication of her beauty, and
then he would go and shut himself up at Vivey, after burying at La
Thuiliere all his dreams and profane desires. But, even while the
courage of this immolation of his youthful love was strong within him,
he could not prevent a dim feeling of hope from crossing his mind.
Claudet was not certain that he was beloved; and possibly Reine's answer
would be a refusal. Then he should have a free field.