ide at once. The
mistress, to whom he had sacrificed the noblest and most loving heart,
he had lost under circumstances as abject as their two years of passion
had been dishonorable. His wife was about to leave him, and would he
succeed in keeping his son? He had returned to be avenged, and he had
not even succeeded in meeting his rival. That being so impressionable
had experienced, in the face of so many repeated blows, a disappointment
so absolute that he gladly looked forward to the prospect of exposing
himself to death on the following day, while at the same time a
bitter flood of rancor possessed him at the thought of all the persons
concerned in his adventure. He would have liked to crush Madame Steno
and Maitland, Lydia and Florent--Dorsenne, too--for having given him the
false word of honor, which had strengthened still more his thirst for
vengeance by calming it for a few hours.

His confusion of thoughts was only greater when he was seated alone
with his son at dinner. That morning he had seen before him his wife's
smiling face. The absence of her whom at that moment he valued above all
else was so sad to him that he ventured one last attempt, and after
the meal he sent little Luc to see if his mother would receive him. The
child returned with a reply in the negative. "Mamma is resting.... She
does not wish to be disturbed." So the matter was irremissible. She
would not see her husband until the morrow--if he lived. For vainly did
Boleslas convince himself that afternoon that he had lost none of his
skill in practising before his admiring seconds; a duel is always
a lottery. He might be killed, and if the possibility of an eternal
separation had not moved the injured woman, what prayer would move her?
He saw her in his thoughts--her who at that moment, with blinds drawn,
all lights subdued, endured in the semi-darkness that suffering which
curses but does not pardon. Ah, but that sight was painful to him! And,
in order that she might at least know how he felt, he took their son in
his arms, and, pressing him to his breast, said: "If you see your mother
before I do, you will tell her that we spent a very lonesome evening
without her, will you not?"

"Why, what ails you?" exclaimed the child. "You have wet my cheeks with
tears--you are sweeping!"

"You will tell her that, too, promise me," replied the father, "so that
she will take good care of herself, seeing how we love her."

"But," said the little boy, "