I could understand better; but in no case--"

He stopped suddenly, and was silent.

While speaking with that woman he had felt beneath his throat a
coil of snakes stifling him, but in his brain certain memories
were sounding, as it were voices, the echo of something distant.
This echo issued from that woman's features, changed and faded,
though the same in which on a time he had fixed his eyes with
rapture, from the sound of her voice, which, at all times, had
possessed for him a charm beyond description. His head, as if
pressed by something above him and invisible, dropped with an
almost indiscernible movement. Shall he forgive? And what would
the result be? An idyl? Harmony? A return to family happiness?
Folly!

That can never be. Only one thing in this world is undoubted and
indestructible: a fact. A fact has taken place, and there is no
power in existence to cause that fact not to be. All views except
this are exaltation! After a moment of silence he finished coldly
and with deliberation:

"In no case can my feelings, or our relations be subject to
change."

She rested her hand against the table more firmly, and bent her
head lower--through that head were still wandering certain
thoughts of a return to pure womanly honor through expiation,
through yielding obediently to the will of the offended.

Then she began in a very low voice:

"Can I aid thee in any way?"

After a moment of silence he answered:

"No."

"Can I be of use to thee in anything?"

He was silent a little longer, and said:

"No," a second time.

The profile which had been turned to her was looking now through
the window-pane to a ruddy cloud, which was moving on in darkness
above the roof opposite, that cloud reminded him of something.
She looked at him, and, after a moment, added:

"Our daughter will write to thee, Aloysius."

He interrupted her, hurriedly:

"Thy daughter!"

She began in astonishment:

"Irene--"

He knew now that that ruddy cloud moving over the darkening sky
reminded him of Cara. He turned his face toward the face of the
woman standing there.

"Irene is thy daughter," said he--"for what meaning have
blood-bonds when there are no others? I had a child who was my
own--"

At that moment desire for revenge boiled up in him; the desire to
crush, so he finished:

"And I lost her--through thee!"

"Through me?"

Her questioning cry was full of amazement.

"Thou knowest of nothing then? They have hidde