pardon, for she rearranged the
pillows under the wounded man's head, while he resumed:

"Yes, my noble Maud, there is a then. It is that I shall prove to you how
much truth there was in my words of yesterday, in my assurance that I
love you in spite of my faults. It is the mother who returns to me today.
But I want my wife, my dear wife, and I shall win her back."

She made no reply. She experienced, on hearing him pronounce those last
words with a transfigured face, an emotion which did not vanish. She had
acquired, beneath the shock of her great sorrow, an intuition too deep of
her husband's nature, and that facility, which formerly charmed her by
rendering her anxious, now inspired her with horror. That man with the
mobile and complaisant conscience had already forgiven himself. It
sufficed him to conceive the plan of a reparation of years, and to
respect himself for it--as if that was really sufficient--for the
difficult task. At least during the eight days which lapsed between that
conversation and their departure he strictly observed the promise he had
given his wife. In vain did Cibo, Pietrapertosa, Hafner, Ardea try to see
him. When the train which bore them away steamed out he asked his wife,
with a pride that time justified by deeds:

"Are you satisfied with me?"

"I am satisfied that we have left Rome," said she, evasively, and it was
true in two senses of the word:

First of all, because she did not delude herself with regard to the
return of the moral energy of which Boleslas was so proud. She knew that
his variable will was at the mercy of the first sensation. Then, what she
had not confessed to her husband, the sorrow of a broken friendship was
joined in her to the sorrows of a betrayed wife. The sudden discovery of
the infamy of Alba's mother had not destroyed her strong affection for
the young girl, and during the entire week, busy with her preparations
for a final departure, she had not ceased to wonder anxiously: "What will
she think of my silence?.... What has her mother told her?.... What has
she divined?"

She had loved the "poor little soul," as she called the Contessina in her
pretty English term. She had devoted to her the friendship peculiar to
young women for young girls--a sentiment--very strong and yet very
delicate, which resembles, in its tenderness, the devotion of an elder
sister for a younger. There is in it a little naive protection and also a
little romantic and gracious melanch