s eyes two tears of most sincere penitence. Banfy
sat down speechless with a sigh, still holding Margaret's hand in his.
It needed only a friendly word from his wife and he would have thrown
himself at her feet and wept like a repentant child. Instead of that
Madame Banfy with a self-denying affectation said:

"Do you wish to stay in this room and shall I go into the other?" Her
frosty tone touched Banfy. He sighed deeply and his eyes looked
sorrowfully at the Paradise closed against him by his wife's joyless
countenance. Sadly he rose from the chair, drew his wife's hand to his
lips, whispered a barely audible "Good-night" and with unsteady steps
entered the next room and closed the door.

Madame Banfy made ready to undress, but sorrow filled her heart and
she threw herself on the bed, buried her face in her hands and
remained lost in grief.

Can there be a greater pain than when the heart struggles with its own
feelings, than when a wife attains to the conviction that the ideal of
her love whom she adored next to God, is only an ordinary man, and
that the man whom she had loved so devotedly is deserving only of her
contempt? yet she is not able to stop loving him. She feels that she
must hate him and separate herself from him; she knows that she cannot
live without him; she would gladly die for him and yet no opportunity
for death offers. Only an unlocked door separated them,--they were
only a few steps apart. How small the distance and yet how great!

She sank into a deep revery. The fire had entirely burned down and the
room was growing darker and darker. Only the woman's figure with her
head buried in her hands was still lighted by the glowing coals.
Suddenly it seemed to her in the stillness of the night and of her
thoughts, as if she heard whispers and stealthy steps at the door.
Madame Banfy really did hear this but she was in that first sleep when
we hear without noticing what we hear; when we know what passes
without heed. There was a whispering outside the window too, and it
seemed to her that she heard besides a slight noise of swords. Half
asleep, half awake, she thought she had risen and bolted the door but
this was only a dream; the door was not fastened. Then there was the
noise of the latch--she dreamed that her husband came out to her and
entreated her.

"Let us separate, Banfy," she tried to say, but the words died on her
lips. The figure in the dream whispered to her, "I am not Banfy, but
the h