drank in the presence of him she loved. No doubt she had an
appointment on the race-course with Maitland, as she had formerly had
with him, and the painter had gone thither when he should have cared for
his courageous, his noble brother-in-law, whom he had allowed to fight
for him! What a worthy lover the selfish and brutal American was of that
vile creature! The image of the happy couple tortured Boleslas with the
bitterest jealousy intermingled with disgust, and, by contrast, he
thought of his own wife, the proud and tender Maud whom he had lost.

He pictured to himself other illnesses when he had seen that beautiful
nurse by his bedside. He saw again the true glance with which that wife,
so shamefully betrayed, looked at him, the movements of her loyal hands,
which yielded to no one the care of waiting upon him. To-day she had
allowed him to go to a duel without seeing him. He had returned. She had
not even inquired as to his wound. The doctor had dressed it without her
presence, and all that he knew of her was what he learned from their
child. For he sent for Luc. He explained to him his broken arm, as had
been agreed upon with his friends, by a fall on the staircase, and little
Luc replied:

"When will you join us, then? Mamma says we leave for England this
evening or in the morning. All the trunks are almost ready."

That evening or to-morrow? So Maud was going to execute her threat. She
was going away forever, and without an explanation. He could not even
plead his cause once more to the woman who certainly would not respond to
another appeal, since she had found, in her outraged pride, the strength
to be severe, when he was in danger of death. In the face of that
evidence of the desertion of all connected with him, Boleslas suffered
one of those accesses of discouragement, deep, absolute, irremediable, in
which one longs to sleep forever. He asked himself: "Were I to try one
more step?" and he replied: "She will not!" when his valet entered with
word that the Countess desired to speak with him. His agitation was so
extreme that, for a second, he fancied it was with regard to Madame
Steno, and he was almost afraid to see his wife enter.

Without any doubt, the emotions undergone during the past few days had
been very great. He had, however, experienced none more violent, even
beneath the pistol raised by Dorsenne, than that of seeing advance to his
bed the embodiment of his remorse. Maud's face, in which ordin