ge, any
artificial sentiment, a dangerous suppleness of mind, she had pardoned
him those defects with the magnanimity of love, attributing them to a
defective training. Gorka at a very early age had witnessed a stirring
family drama--his mother and his father lived apart, while neither the
one nor the other had the exclusive guidance of the child. How could she
find indulgence for the shameful hypocrisy of two years' standing, for
the villainy of that treachery practised at the domestic hearth, for the
continued, voluntary disloyalty of every day, every hour? Though Maud
experienced, in the midst of her despair, the sort of calmness which
proves a firm and just resolution, when she reentered the Palazzetto
Doria--what a drama had been enacted in her heart since her going
out!--and it was in a voice almost as calm as usual that she asked: "Is
the Count at home?"

What did she experience when the servant, after answering her in the
affirmative, added: "Madame and Mademoiselle Steno, too, are awaiting
Madame in the salon." At the thought that the woman who had stolen from
her her husband was there, the betrayed wife felt her blood boil, to use
a common but expressive phrase. It was very natural that Alba's mother
should call upon her, as was her custom. It was still more natural for
her to come there that day. For very probably a report of the duel the
following day had reached her. Her presence, however, and at that moment,
aroused in Maud a feeling of indignation so impassioned that her first
impulse was to enter, to drive out Boleslas's mistress as one would drive
out a servant surprised thieving. Suddenly the thought of Alba presented
itself to her mind, of that sweet and pure Alba, of that soul as pure as
her name, of her whose dearest friend she was. Since the dread revelation
she had thought several times of the young girl. But her deep sorrow
having absorbed all the power of her soul, she had not been able to feel
such friendship for the delicate and pretty child. At the thought of
ejecting her rival, as she had the right to do, that sentiment stirred
within her. A strange pity flooded her soul, which caused her to pause in
the centre of the large hall, ornamented with statues and columns, which
she was in the act of crossing. She called the servant just as he was
about to put his hand on the knob of the door. The analogy between her
situation and that of Alba struck her very forcibly. She experienced the
sensation