wife was about to leave him, and would he succeed
in keeping his son? He had returned to be avenged, and he had not even
succeeded in meeting his rival. That being so impressionable had
experienced, in the face of so many repeated blows, a disappointment so
absolute that he gladly looked forward to the prospect of exposing
himself to death on the following day, while at the same time a bitter
flood of rancor possessed him at the thought of all the persons concerned
in his adventure. He would have liked to crush Madame Steno and Maitland,
Lydia and Florent--Dorsenne, too--for having given him the false word of
honor, which had strengthened still more his thirst for vengeance by
calming it for a few hours.

His confusion of thoughts was only greater when he was seated alone with
his son at dinner. That morning he had seen before him his wife's smiling
face. The absence of her whom at that moment he valued above all else was
so sad to him that he ventured one last attempt, and after the meal he
sent little Luc to see if his mother would receive him. The child
returned with a reply in the negative. "Mamma is resting.... She does not
wish to be disturbed." So the matter was irremissible. She would not see
her husband until the morrow--if he lived. For vainly did Boleslas
convince himself that afternoon that he had lost none of his skill in
practising before his admiring seconds; a duel is always a lottery. He
might be killed, and if the possibility of an eternal separation had not
moved the injured woman, what prayer would move her? He saw her in his
thoughts--her who at that moment, with blinds drawn, all lights subdued,
endured in the semi-darkness that suffering which curses but does not
pardon. Ah, but that sight was painful to him! And, in order that she
might at least know how he felt, he took their son in his arms, and,
pressing him to his breast, said: "If you see your mother before I do,
you will tell her that we spent a very lonesome evening without her, will
you not?"

"Why, what ails you?" exclaimed the child. "You have wet my cheeks with
tears--you are sweeping!"

"You will tell her that, too, promise me," replied the father, "so that
she will take good care of herself, seeing how we love her."

"But," said the little boy, "she was not ill when we walked together
after breakfast. She was so gay."

"I think, too, it will be nothing serious," replied Gorka. He was obliged
to dismiss his son and to go out. He