ger, so excited, and so determined to show
that nothing ailed him, that for a short time he was roused, and seemed
to be recovering; but in a few days he flagged again, only, if possible
with more gruffness, moodiness, and pertinacity in not allowing that
anything was amiss. It was the bitterest drop of all in Berenger's cup,
when in the end of January he looked back at what Philip had been only
a month before, and saw how he had wasted away and lost strength; the
impulse rather to ruin himself that destroy his brother came with such
force that he could scarcely escape it by his ever-recurring cry
for help to withstand it. And then Diane, in her splendid beauty and
withchery, would rise before him, so that he knew how a relaxation of
the lengthened weary effort would make his whole self break its
bonds and go out to her. Dreams of felicity and liberty, and not
with Eustacie, would even come over him, and he would awaken to
disappointment before he came to a sense of relief and thankfulness
that he was still his own. The dislike, distaste, and dread that came
so easily in his time of pain and weakness were less easy to maintain
in his full health and forced inactivity. Occupation of mind and hope
seemed the only chance of enabling either of the two to weather this
most dreary desert period; and Berenger, setting his thoughts resolutely
to consider what would be the best means of rousing Philip, decided
at length that any endeavour to escape, however arduous and desperate,
would be better than his present apathetic languor, even if it led to
nothing. After the first examination of their prison, Berenger had had
no thought of escape; he was then still weak and unenterprising. He had
for many months lived in hopes of interference from home; and, besides,
the likelihood that so English a party as his own would be quickly
pursued and recaptured, where they did not know their road and had
no passports, had deterred him lest should fall into still straiter
imprisonment. But he had since gained, in the course of his rides