e!... Did he love the mistress who
did not even love him, since she had deceived him with Maitland? And he
was going to fight a duel on her account!... Jealousy, at that
moment, wrung the wife's heart with a pang still stronger than that of
indignation. She, the strong Englishwoman, so large, so robust, almost
masculine in form, mentally compared herself with the supple Italian
with her form so round, with her gestures so graceful, her hands so
delicate, her feet so dainty; compared herself with the creature of
desire, whose every movement implied a secret wave of passion, and she
ceased her cry--"Ah, how could he?"--at once. She had a clear knowledge
of the power of her rival.

It is indeed a supreme agony for an honorable woman, who loves, to
feel herself thus degraded by the mere thought of the intoxication
her husband has tasted in arms more beautiful, more caressing, more
entwining than hers. It was, too, a signal for the return of will to the
tortured but proud soul. Disgust possessed her, so violent, so complete,
for the atmosphere of falsehood and of sensuality in which Boleslas had
lived two years, that she drew herself up, becoming again strong and
implacable. Braving the storm, she turned in the direction of her
home, with this resolution as firmly rooted in her mind as if she had
deliberated for months and months.

"I will not remain with that man another day. Tomorrow I will leave for
England with my son."

How many, in a similar situation, have uttered such vows, to abjure them
when they find themselves face to face with the man who has betrayed
them, and whom they love. Maud was not of that order. Certainly she
loved dearly the seductive Boleslas, wedded against her parents' will
the perfidious one for whom she had sacrificed all, living far from her
native land and her family for years, because it pleased him, breathing,
living, only for him and for their boy. But there was within her--as
her long, square chin, her short nose and the strength of her brow
revealed--the force of inflexibility--which is met with in characters
of an absolute uprightness. Love, with her, could be stifled by disgust,
or, rather, she considered it degrading to continue to love one whom she
scorned, and, at that moment, it was supreme scorn which reigned in her
heart. She had, in the highest degree, the great virtue which is found
wherever there is nobility, and of which the English have made the basis
of their moral educatio