you have spoken to me very severely, and although you might have said the same thing in other terms, although, above all, it is very painful to me to have you condemn my entire character on one single error, I love you, I love my son, and I agree in advance to your conditions.  I esteem your character too much to doubt that they will be reconcilable with my dignity.  As for the duel of this morning,” he added, “you know very well that it was too late to withdraw without dishonor.”

“I should like your promise, first of all,” replied Madame Gorka, who did not answer his last remark, “that during the time in which you are obliged to keep your room no one shall be admitted....  I could not bear that creature in my house, nor any one who would speak to me or to you of her.”

“I promise,” said the young man, who felt a flood of warmth enter his soul at the first proof that the jealousy of the loving woman still existed beneath the indignation of the wife.  And he added, with a smile, “That will not be a great sacrifice.  And then?”

“Then?....  That the doctor will permit us to go to England.  We will leave orders for the management of things during our absence.  We will go this winter wherever you like, but not to this house; never again to this city.”

“That is a promise, too,” said Boleslas, “and that will be no great sacrifice either; and then?”

“And then,” said she in a low voice, as if ashamed of herself.  “You must never write to her, you must never try to find out what has become of her.”

“I give you my word,” replied Boleslas, taking her hand, and adding:  “And then?”

“There is no then,” said she, withdrawing her hand, but gently.  And she began to realize herself her promise of pardon, for she rearranged the pillows under the wounded man’s head, while he resumed: 

“Yes, my noble Maud, there is a then.  It is that I shall prove to you how much truth there was in my words of yesterday, in my assurance that I love you in spite of my faults.  It is the mother who returns to me today.  But I want my wife, my dear wife, and I shall win her back.”

She made no reply.  She experienced, on hearing him pronounce those last words with a transfigured face, an emotion which did not vanish.  She had acquired, beneath the shock of her great sorrow, an intuition too deep of her husband’s nature, and that facility, which formerly charmed her by rendering her anxious, now inspired her with horror.  That man with the mobile and complaisant conscience had already forgiven himself.  It sufficed him to conceive the plan of a reparation of years, and to respect himself for it—­as if that was really sufficient—­for the difficult task.  At least during the eight days which lapsed between that conversation and their departure he strictly observed the promise he had given his wife.  In vain did Cibo, Pietrapertosa, Hafner, Ardea try to see him.  When the train which bore them away steamed out he asked his wife, with a pride that time justified by deeds: