Dorsenne said of her, with more justness than he thought:  “Madame Boleslas Gorka is married to a man who has never been presented to her,” meaning by that, that first of all she had no idea of her husband’s character, and then of the treason of which she was the victim.  However, the novelist was not altogether right.  Boleslas’s infidelity was of too long standing for the woman passionately, religiously loyal, who was his wife, not to have suffered by it.  But there was an abyss between such sufferings and the intuition of a determined fact such as that which Lydia had just mentioned, and such a suspicion was so far from Maud’s thoughts that her companion’s words only aroused in her astonishment at the mysterious danger of which Lydia’s troubles was a proof more eloquent still than her words.

“Your brother?  My husband?” she said.  “I do not understand you.”

“Naturally,” replied Lydia, “he has hidden all from you, as Florent hid all from me.  Well!  They are going to fight a duel, and to-morrow morning....  Do not tremble, in your turn,” she continued, twining her arms around Maud Gorka.  “We shall be two to prevent the terrible affair, and we shall prevent it.”

“A duel?  To-morrow morning?” repeated Maud, in affright.  “Boleslas fights to-morrow with your brother?  No, it is impossible.  Who told you so?  How do you know it?”

“I read the proof of it with my eyes,” replied Lydia.  “I read Florent’s will.  I read the letter which he prepared for Maitland and for me in case of accident....”

“Should I be in the state in which you see me if it were not true?”

“Oh, I believe you!” cried Maud, pressing her hands to her eyelids, as if to shut out a horrible sight.  “But where can they be seen?  Boleslas has been here scarcely any of the time for two days.  What is there between them?  What have they said to one another?  One does not risk one’s life for nothing when he has, like Boleslas, a wife and a son.  Answer me, I conjure you.  Tell me all.  I desire to know all.  What is there at the bottom of this duel?”

“What could there be but a woman?” interrupted Lydia, who put into the two last words more savage scorn than if she had publicly spit in Caterina Steno’s face.  But that fresh access of anger fell before the surprise caused her by Madame Gorka’s reply.

“What woman?  I understand you still less than I did just now.”

“When we are at home I will speak,".... replied Lydia, after having looked at Maud with a surprised glance, which was in itself the most terrible reply.  The two women were silent.  It was Maud who now required the sympathy of friendship, so greatly had the words uttered by Lydia startled her.  The companion whose arm rested upon hers in that carriage, and who had inspired her with such pity fifteen minutes before, now rendered her fearful.  She seemed to be seated by the side of another person.  In the creature whose thin nostrils were dilated with