"Then hate me, rather than forget me!" said his wife, bursting out vehemently, and then regretting it at once.
"What then do you wish of me? have you any ground for your suspicions? You certainly do not wish me to give you an account of the roads I have taken and the people I have spoken with, like the simpleton Giola Bertai, who when he goes away from home takes a diary with him and makes out a report of every hour for his other half. Neither do I keep you under lock and key the way Abraham Thoroczkai does his wife. He has a lock put on his wife's room during his entire absence and when he returns requires the whole village to give an oath that his wife has not spoken with any one in the interval."
Madame Banfy laughed, but the laugh ended in a sigh.
"You evade the question with a jest. I do not accuse you, I do not keep watch of you, and if you should deceive me I should never find it out. But listen; there is in the heart of woman a something, a certain distressing feeling which causes pain without one's knowing why, which knows how to give information whether the love of one who is our all is coming or going, without being able to support itself by reasons. I do not know, and I will not learn where you spend your time, but this I do know, that you stay away a long while at a time and do not make haste to come home. Banfy, I suffer—suffer more than you can imagine."
"Madame," said Banfy, looking at her coldly as he stood before her; "in this country a suit for divorce does not require much time."
Madame Banfy fell back in her chair, clasped her hands over her heart in terror and struggled for breath. A trembling cry broke from her lips and they did not close again. It was as if some one had cut the strings of her heart with a sword. Half-fainting she stared at her husband as if doubting whether his words could have been in earnest or whether she ought not to take them for a horrible jest.
"You are unhappy," Banfy went on, "and I cannot help you. You love to dream and I do not understand you in the least. Possibly my soul does hurt yours, but it is unintentional. It is a fact that your feelings hurt mine and that I will not endure. I recognize no tyrant over me, not even in love. I will not be importuned even with tears. Let us tear our hearts apart. Better for us to do it now while they would still bleed, than to wait until they fall apart naturally. Better for us to separate now while we love each other, than to wait until we come to hatred."
During this terrible speech the lady struggled, gasping for breath, as if some dread phantom oppressed her heart and robbed her of speech, until at last her passion made its way by force and she uttered the piercing cry:
"Banfy, you have killed me!"
Her voice, the expression of her face, seemed to make Banfy tremble; and though he was already on the point of leaving the room in haste, he stopped half-way and looked once more at his wife. He did not notice at this moment that the door had opened and that some one had entered. He saw only that in the face of his wife, so ravaged with despair, there came suddenly an indescribably distressed smile; this forced smile on her agonized features was something terrible. Banfy thought his wife was losing her mind. But Madame Banfy rose, bustling from her seat and cried out,