ion to abate his
stand by a jot. He had not yet formulated a reason for his
resistance: he simply went on feeling, more and more strongly with
every precious sign of her participation in his unhappiness, that he
could neither owe his escape from it to such a transaction, nor
suffer her, innocently, to owe hers.

The only mitigating effect of his determination was in an increase
of helpless tenderness toward her; so that, when she exclaimed, in
answer to his announcement that he meant to leave Paris the next
night: "Oh, give me a day or two longer!" he at once resigned
himself to saying: "If I can be of the least use, I'll give you a
hundred."

She answered sadly that all he could do would be to let her feel
that he was there--just for a day or two, till she had readjusted
herself to the idea of going on in the old way; and on this note of
renunciation they parted.

But Durham, however pledged to the passive part, could not long
sustain it without rebellion. To "hang round" the shut door of his
hopes seemed, after two long days, more than even his passion
required of him; and on the third he despatched a note of goodbye to
his friend. He was going off for a few weeks, he explained--his
mother and sisters wished to be taken to the Italian lakes: but he
would return to Paris, and say his real farewell to her, before
sailing for America in July.

He had not intended his note to act as an ultimatum: he had no wish
to surprise Madame de Malrive into unconsidered surrender. When,
almost immediately, his own messenger returned with a reply from
her, he even felt a pang of disappointment, a momentary fear lest
she should have stooped a little from the high place where his
passion had preferred to leave her; but her first words turned his
fear into rejoicing.

"Let me see you before you go: something extraordinary has
happened," she wrote.

What had happened, as he heard from her a few hours later--finding
her in a tremor of frightened gladness, with her door boldly closed
to all the world but himself--was nothing less extraordinary than a
visit from Madame de Treymes, who had come, officially delegated by
the family, to announce that Monsieur de Malrive had decided not to
oppose his wife's suit for divorce. Durham, at the news, was almost
afraid to show himself too amazed; but his small signs of alarm and
wonder were swallowed up in the flush of Madame de Malrive's
incredulous joy.

"It's the long habit, you know, of