“What is worrying you, my dear fellow?” said Fúcar to the younger man in a tone of kindly familiarity and laying his hand on Leon’s shoulder. “I know of course that your wife—ah, this is the deplorable result of exaggeration. You have it in a nutshell: piety is a virtue; but carry it to excess and what is the consequence? Misery and horrors.”
Then, as they went on, Fúcar leaning on Leon’s arm, he said in a low voice:
“My poor Ramona was just such another. There was no bearing it. Still this sort of infidelity—a religious passion—must be winked at, must be forgiven. I ask you, what is a man to do in such a case? It is frightful but irremediable. When a wife is faithful to her husband there is no reason, no excuse even for a separation and nevertheless she may be too much for endurance. I feel for you. I can only repeat what I said: we live in a vale of mistakes.”
Not long after Leon took his leave. He was so absorbed in thought that he failed to bow to Don Joaquín Onésimo who was walking in the park with the French baron, and discussing the pending loan with the deep interest that some men feel in a public calamity. On reaching Madrid he got out of his carriage to walk home, and he wandered through endless streets and turnings like a man walking in his sleep, seeing nothing and hearing nothing but a voice within which said again and again: “A widow!”
CHAPTER XXIX.
ERUNT DUO IN CARNE UNA.
For several days Leon did not go to Suertebella excepting once to leave a complimentary card at the door. He spent most of his time away from home; he had given up study and packed all his books into cases. He frequented clubs and meetings, but his friends found him taciturn and indifferent alike to gossip, news and discussion. He talked of a journey without saying whither, of a long absence; but if he had occasion to speak on any other subject it was with a bitterness of sarcasm or invective very unlike his usual serene and lofty way of viewing the events of life or the persons with whom he had come in contact.