“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 for you, in seeing that you have not even the courage to acknowledge your fault.  God is my witness, I should have respected you more, had you said:  ’I have ceased loving you.  I have taken a mistress.  It was convenient for me to lie to you.  I have lied.  I have sacrificed all to my passion, my honor, my duties, my vows and you.’....  Ah, speak to me like that, that I may have with you the sentiment of truth....  But that you dare to repeat to me words of tenderness after what you have done to me, inspires me with repulsion.  It is too bitter.”

“Yes,” said Boleslas, “you think thus.  True and simple as you are, how could you have learned to understand what a weak will is—­a will which wishes and which does not, which rises and which falls?....  And yet, if I had not loved you, what interest would I have in lying to you?  Have I anything to conceal now?  Ah, if you knew in what a position I am, on the eve of what day, I beseech you to believe that at least the best part of my being has never ceased to be yours!”

It was the strongest effort he could make to bring back the heart of his wife so deeply wounded—­the allusion to his duel.  For since she had not mentioned it to him, it was no doubt because she was still ignorant of it.  He was once more startled by the reply she made, and which proved to him to what a degree indignation had paralyzed even her love.  He resumed: