if he should not appeal to the courts, dissolve his marriage, and demand
back his name from the one who had stolen it.

Appeal to the courts? The idea of doing that was repugnant to him.
What! to hear the proud and stainless name of the Zilahs resound,
no longer above the clash of sabres and the neighing of furious horses,
but within the walls of a courtroom, and in presence of a gaping crowd
of sensation seekers? No! silence was better than that; anything was
better than publicity and scandal. Divorce! He could obtain that, since
Marsa, her mind destroyed, was like one dead. And what would a divorce
give him? His freedom? He had it already. But what nothing could give
back, was his ruined faith, his shattered hopes, his happiness lost
forever.

At times he had a wild desire to see Marsa again, and vent once more upon
her his anger and contempt. When he happened to see the name of Maisons-
Lafitte, his body tingled from head to foot, as by an electric shock.
Maisons! The sunlit garden, the shaded alleys, the glowing parterres of
flowers, the old oaks, the white-walled villa, all appeared before him,
brutally distinct, like a lost, or rather poisoned, Eden! And, besides,
she, Marsa, was no longer there; and the thought that the woman whom he
had so passionately loved, with her exquisite, flower-like face, was shut
up among maniacs at Vaugirard, caused him the acutest agony. The asylum
which was Marsa's prison was so constantly in his mind that he felt the
necessity of flight, in order not to allow his weakness to get the bettor
of him, lest he should attempt to see Marsa again.

"What a coward I am!" he thought.

One evening he announced to Varhely that he was going to the lonely villa