sensibility. "Of what use is it to try to settle matters?" he
continued. "I see only too well all is ended between us. Your pride and
your rancor are stronger than your love. If it had been otherwise, you
would have begged me not to fight, and you would only have reproached me,
as you have the right to do, I do not deny.... But from the moment that
you no longer love me, woe to him whom I find in my path! Woe to Madame
Maitland and to those she loves!"

"This time at least you are sincere," replied Maud, with renewed
bitterness. "Do you think I have not suffered sufficient humiliation?
Would you like me to supplicate you not to fight for that creature?
And do you not feel the supreme outrage which that encounter is to me?
Moreover," she continued with tragical solemnity, "I did not summon you
to have with you a conversation as sad as it is useless, but to tell you
my resolution.... I hope that you will not oblige me to resort for its
execution to the means which the law puts in my power?"

"I don't deserve to be spoken to thus," said Boleslas, haughtily.

"I will remain here to-night," resumed Maud, without heeding that reply,
"for the last time. To-morrow evening I shall leave for England."

"You are free," said he, with a bow.

"And I shall take my son with me," she added.

"Our son!" he replied, with the composure of a man overcome by an access
of tenderness and who controls himself. "That? No. I forbid it."

"You forbid it?" said she. "Very well, we will appeal it. I knew that