Ah, it is maddening!" And turning toward her companion, she in her turn pressed her hands, saying: "But you know nothing! You suspect nothing! It is that which maddens me, when I see you tranquil, calm, happy, as if the minutes were not valuable, every one, to-day, to you as well as to me.

For if one is my brother, the other is your husband; and you love him.

You must love him, to have pardoned him for what you have pardoned him." She had spoken in a sort of delirium, brought about by her extreme nervous excitement, and she had uttered, she, usually so dissembling, her very deepest thought.

She did not think she was giving Madame Gorka any information by that allusion, so direct, to the liaison of Boleslas with Madame Steno.

She was persuaded, as was entire Rome, that Maud knew of her husband's infidelities, and that she tolerated them by one of those heroic sacrifices which maternity justifies.