"Nobody's," was the answer, "as long as there is no supposition of a way of life which throws a shadow on you. One knows your ideas as to the requirements of rank, and the origin of the lady is known. Therefore, no one believes you are married to her; and they explain the circumstance of your servants designating her countess as a proof of your too punctilious delicacy. But when some lackey jeered at your servant Jan because of his credulity, he swore by all that was holy that he had himself witnessed baptism and marriage. Of course the story has been bruited about, and though as yet it is not credited fully, still many are doubtful, and I felt called upon, for the sake of our old friendship, to inquire for myself."
"Thank you for your good-will," replied Agenor, "but I must refuse any explanation."
"That is worse than an outright 'yes,'" said Oginski. "The affair remains accordingly a fit subject for gossip."
"I cannot help it."
Oginski took his hat. "Well, as your friend, I counsel you to go as soon as possible to some remote place, since you are unwilling to give an open answer."
Two days later Agenor followed this advice. It was the end of April, and his route lay through Milan to the lakes. There were color, odor, and beauty wherever his eye rested, but Italy was no longer the paradise he had pictured it. Under the influence of that conversation, he had directed that all his letters should be sent to his banking-house in Vienna, so that no one in Galicia should know his address. Indeed, he felt his humiliation so keenly that he left Bellagio after a very brief stay--although he had met no acquaintance there--for a small village seldom visited by tourists. At Iseo, on the lake of the same name, they paused; "for how long?" he asked himself in despair.
As week after week passed quietly and without interruption, he pulled himself together, enough at least to hide his state of mind from Judith, though he did not entirely succeed. It was, however, not a mere reflection from his mind which caused her to pass whole days in gloomy brooding after their departure from Florence.
She did not weep, but this silent grief was deeper than the louder one, and her fever came again. The Austrian physician, who came from Brescia occasionally at Agenor's request, looked grave.
"I am afraid I cannot order your wife to be happy. Speak seriously with her. Perhaps she is afraid of her hour of trial; that is often the case with young wives."
Agenor hesitated some time before he asked her this question. She was silent, and it was only after repeated inquiries she said: "And if it were so, is it not natural for a woman, burdened by her father's curse, to tremble at the thought of the hour which is to make her a mother?"