smiling face. The absence of her whom at that moment he valued above all
else was so sad to him that he ventured one last attempt, and after the
meal he sent little Luc to see if his mother would receive him. The
child returned with a reply in the negative. "Mamma is resting.... She
does not wish to be disturbed." So the matter was irremissible. She
would not see her husband until the morrow--if he lived. For vainly did
Boleslas convince himself that afternoon that he had lost none of his
skill in practising before his admiring seconds; a duel is always a
lottery. He might be killed, and if the possibility of an eternal
separation had not moved the injured woman, what prayer would move her?
He saw her in his thoughts--her who at that moment, with blinds drawn,
all lights subdued, endured in the semi-darkness that suffering which
curses but does not pardon. Ah, but that sight was painful to him!
And, in order that she might at least know how he felt, he took their son
in his arms, and, pressing him to his breast, said: "If you see your
mother before I do, you will tell her that we spent a very lonesome
evening without her, will you not?"

"Why, what ails you?" exclaimed the child. "You have wet my cheeks with
tears--you are sweeping!"

"You will tell her that, too, promise me," replied the father, "so that
she will take good care of herself, seeing how we love her."

"But," said the little boy, "she was not ill when we walked together
after breakfast. She was so gay."

"I think, too, it will be nothing serious," replied Gorka. He was
obliged to dismiss his son and to go out. He felt so horribly sad that
he was physically afraid to remain alone in the house. But whither