Here her lips became pale on a sudden, her hands closed, and the voice stopped in her throat. It might seem that the despair accumulated in her soul would break all bounds immediately; but she mastered herself after a while, and only her clinched hands testified what the effort was which that action had cost her.

Pan Stanislav, seeing her suffering, judged that it would be better to turn her thought in another direction, toward practical and current affairs; hence he said,—

“Evidently this will be an unheard of change in the life of Ignas; but I too hope that it will result only in good. Knowing him, it is difficult to admit another issue. But could you not defer the act for a year, or at least half a year?”

“Why?”

“For reasons which do not lie in Ignas himself, but which might have connection with him. I do not know whether the news has reached you that the marriage of Panna Castelli to Kopovski is broken, and that the position of those ladies is tremendously awkward in consequence. Through breaking with Ignas, they have made public opinion indignant, and now their names are on people’s tongues again. It would be for them a perfect escape to return to Ignas; and it is possible to suppose that when they learn of your gift, they will surely attempt this, and it is unknown whether Ignas, especially after so short an interval, and weakened as he is, might not let himself be involved by them.”

Panna Helena looked at Pan Stanislav with brows contracted from attention, and, dwelling on what he said, she answered,—

“No. I judge that Ignas will choose otherwise.”

“I divine your thought,” said Pan Stanislav; “but think,—he was attached to that other one beyond every estimate, to such a degree that he did not wish to outlive the loss of her.”

Here something happened which Pan Stanislav had not expected, for Panna Helena, who had always such control of herself and was almost stern, opened her thin arms in helplessness, and said,—

“Ah, if that were true,—if there were not for him any other happiness save in her! Oh, Pan Polanyetski, I knew that he ought not to do that; but there are things stronger than man, and they are things which he needs for life absolutely—and besides—”