w that you have been the
lover of that woman, of the mother of my intimate friend, at my side,
under my very eyes.... If you had suffered by that deception, as you
say, you would not have waited to avow all to me until I held in my
hands the undeniable proof of your infamy.... You have cast aside the
mask, or, rather, I have wrested it from you.... I desire no more.... As
for the details of the shameful story, spare me them. It was not to hear
them that I reentered a house every corner of which reminds me that I
believed in you implicitly, and that you have betrayed me, not one day,
but every day; that you betrayed me the day before yesterday, yesterday,
this morning, an hour ago.... I repeat, that is sufficient."

"But it is not sufficient for me!" exclaimed Boleslas. "Yes, all you
have just said is true, and I deserve to have you tell it to me. But
that which you could not read in those letters shown to you, that which
I have kept for two years in the depths of my heart, and which must now
be told--is that, through all these fatal impulses, I have never ceased
to love you.... Ah, do not recoil from me, do not look at me thus.... I
feel it once more in the agony I have suffered since you are speaking to
me; there is something within me that has never ceased being yours.
That woman has been my aberration. She has had my madness, my senses,
my passion, all the evil instincts of my being.... You have remained my
idol, my affection, my religion.... If I lied to you it was because I
knew that the day on which you would find out my fault I should see you
before me, despairing and implacable as you now are, as I can not bear
to have you be. Ah, judge me, condemn me, curse me; but know, but feel,
that in spite of all I have loved you, I still love you."

Again he spoke with an enthusiasm which was not feigned. Though he
had deceived her, he recognized only too well the value of the loyal
creature before him, whom he feared he should lose. If he could not move
her at the moment when he was about to fight a duel, when could he
move her? So he approached her with the same gesture of suppliant and
impassioned adoration which he employed in the early days of their
marriage, and before his treason, when he had told her of his love. No
doubt that remembrance thrust itself upon Maud and disgusted her, for it
was with veritable horror that she again recoiled, replying:

"Be silent! That lie is the worst of all. It pains me. I blush fo