ked my grief in the face. It taught me, first, to accept it as a just
punishment for having married against the advice and wishes of my
father."

"Ah, do not abjure our past!" cried the young man; "the past which has
remained so dear to me through all."

"No, I do not abjure it," replied Maud, "for it was on recurring to
it--it was on returning to my early impressions--that I could find not an
excuse, but an explanation of your conduct. I remembered what you related
to me of the misfortunes of your childhood and of your youth, and how you
had grown up between your father and your mother, passing six months with
one, six months with the other--not caring for, not being able to judge
either of them--forced to hide from one your feelings for the other. I
saw for the first time that your parents' separation had the effect of
saddening your heart at that epoch. It is that which perverted your
character.... And I read in advance Luc's history in yours.... Listen,
Boleslas! I speak to you as I would speak before God! My first feeling
when that thought presented itself to my mind was not to resume life with
you; such a life would be henceforth too bitter. No, it was to say to
myself, I will have my son to myself. He shall feel my influence alone. I
saw you set out this morning--set out to insult me once more, to
sacrifice me once more! If you had been truly repentant would you have
offered me that last affront? And when you returned--when they informed
me that you had a broken arm--I wished to tell the little one myself that
you were ill.... I saw how much he loved you, I discovered what a place
you already occupied in his heart, and I comprehended that, even if the
law gave him to me, as I know it would, his childhood would be like
yours, his youth like your youth."

"Then," she went on, with an accent in which emotion struggled through
her pride, "I did not feel justified in destroying the respect so deep,
the love so true, he bears you, and I have come to say to you: You have
wronged me greatly. You have killed within me something that will never
come to life again. I feel that for years I shall carry a weight on my
mind and on my heart at the thought that you could have betrayed me as
you have. But I feel that for our boy this separation on which I had
resolved is too perilous. I feel that I shall find in the certainty of
avoiding a moral danger for him the strength to continue a common
existence, and I will continue it.