condition to discuss with you so cruel a question.... I thought I had
already said that I would not disregard your rights on condition that you
did not disregard mine."

"It is not of my rights that I wish to speak, nor of yours," interrupted
Maud, "but of his, the only ones of importance. When I left you
yesterday, I was suffering too severely to feel anything but my pain.
It was then that, in my mental agony, I recalled words repeated to me by
my father: 'When one suffers, he should look his grief in the face, and
it will always teach him something.' I was ashamed of my weakness, and I
looked my grief in the face. It taught me, first, to accept it as a just
punishment for having married against the advice and wishes of my
father."

"Ah, do not abjure our past!" cried the young man; "the past which has
remained so dear to me through all."

"No, I do not abjure it," replied Maud, "for it was on recurring to it--
it was on returning to my early impressions--that I could find not an
excuse, but an explanation of your conduct. I remembered what you
related to me of the misfortunes of your childhood and of your youth, and
how you had grown up between your father and your mother, passing six
months with one, six months with the other--not caring for, not being
able to judge either of them--forced to hide from one your feelings for
the other. I saw for the first time that your parents' separation had
the effect of saddening your heart at that epoch. It is that which
perverted your character.... And I read in advance Luc's history in
yours.... Listen, Boleslas! I speak to you as I would speak before God!
My first feeling when that thought presented itself to my mind was not to
resume life with you; such a life would be henceforth too bitter. No, it