Pan Serafin alone had a thought for her. He was moved by her tears and touched by her misfortune. The servants had begun to whisper that the Krepetski old maids had swept off her whole trousseau, and the old lord had hidden in his box her "little jewels," and that in the house they were already beginning to browbeat the "young lady." When these reports went to Pan Serafin they moved his kind heart, and he resolved to see Father Voynovski.
But that kindly man was prejudiced much against Panna Anulka because of Yatsek, so at the very beginning he answered,--
"I am sorry for her, the poor lady, for she is in need, but in what can I help her? That, speaking between us, God punished her for Yatsek is certain."
"But Yatsek is gone, as is Stanislav, and she is here simply an orphan."
"Of course he is gone, but how did he go? You saw him going, but I went with him farther, and I tell you that the poor boy had his teeth set, and the heart in him was bleeding, so that he could not utter a syllable. Oh! he loved that girl as people loved only in the old time; they know not to-day how to love in that manner."
"Still he was able to move his hands," said Pan Serafin, "for I heard that just beyond Radom he had a quarrel and cut up a passing noble, or even two of them."
"Ah, because he has a girl's face every road-blocker thinks that he can get on with him cheaply. Some drunken fellows sought a quarrel. What was he to do? I blame in him that method; I blame it, but remember, your grace, that a man with a heart torn by love is like a lion seeking to devour some one."
"True; but as to the girl. Ah, my benefactor, God knows if she is as much to blame as we imagine."
"Woman is insidious."
"Insidious or not, but when I heard that Pan Gideon wished to marry her it occurred to me straightway that he roused up everything, for it must have been all-important for him to get rid of Yatsek forever."