"Yes; I have seen him. He is at a lodging on the Italian Boulevards—and alone."
"Alone! And—and does he not mean to see me; to call and—"
"How could he? Have you forgotten how you last parted? You resenting deeply his then only seeming delinquency; and he wounded by, yet resigned to, your evident resentment."
"True, true: yet still—"
"No; I had a long conversation with Pendarves,—for after his late behaviour, and being convinced that he was alone, I had no objection to call on him,—and he received me as I wished. He even was as open on every subject as I could desire; and I found him, though still persecuted by the letters of La Beauvais, resolved never to renew any correspondence with her."
"If so, and if sure of himself, why not write to me, if he does not like to visit me? I am sure I have not proved myself unforgiving."
"Shall I tell you why? A feeling that does him honour; a consciousness that, fallen as he is from the high estate he once held in your esteem and that of others, he cannot presume to require of you, though you are his wife, a re-instatement in your love and your society; and he very properly feels that the first advance should come from you: for though, as I told him, the relaxed principles of the world allow husbands a latitude which they deny to wives; still, in the eyes of God, and in those of nicely feeling men, the fault is in both sexes equal; and an offender like Pendarves is no longer entitled, as he was before, to the tenderness of a virtuous wife. Nay, Pendarves, penitent and self-judged, agrees with me in this opinion, and is thereby raised in my estimation."
"What! does Pendarves feel and think thus?"
"Yes; therefore I will myself entreat for him entire forgiveness; but not directly, and as if a husband who has so grossly erred were as dear to you as one without error."
Here De Walden's voice failed him; but he soon after added, in a low voice, "And I trust that to have aided in bringing about your re-union will support me under the feelings which the sight of it may occasion me."