CHAPTER VII.
M.Daburon did not return home on leaving Mademoiselle d'Arlange.

All through the night he wandered about at random, seeking to cool his heated brow, and to allay his excessive weariness.
"Fool that I was!" said he to himself, "thousand times fool to have hoped, to have believed, that she would ever love me.

Madman! how could I have dared to dream of possessing so much grace, nobleness, and beauty! How charming she was this evening, when her face was bathed in tears! Could anything be more angelic?
What a sublime expression her eyes had in speaking of him! How she must love him! And I?
She loves me as a father, she told me so,--as a father! And could it be otherwise?
Is it not justice?
Could she see a lover in a sombre and severe-looking magistrate, always as sad as his black coat?
Was it not a crime to dream of uniting that virginal simplicity to my detestable knowledge of the world?
For her, the future is yet the land of smiling chimeras; and long since experience has dissipated all my illusions.

She is as young as innocence, and I am as old as vice." The unfortunate magistrate felt thoroughly ashamed of himself.

He understood Claire, and excused her.