The cheering for Wroblewski aroused him from his musings; then from a great distance the first faint roar of a cannon, answered by volleys in the marketplace. The count had reached the boundary-line of the town, where the _banderium_ was waiting for him. Another half-hour and the procession would be before the door. But it was not so long. When the count, in an open landau with his wife, and a closed vehicle which contained Hamia, Jan, and the boy, who had been christened Ludwig, reached "The Three lindens," at the limits of the town, he scarcely gave the leader of the _banderium_ time to hand him the bread and salt before he ordered the closed carriage to drive to the castle by a circuitous way, and told Fedko to "hurry up." The landau was driven at a furious pace, and was enveloped in a cloud of dust as it reached the town. Every moment the count's cheeks grew more colorless, and the quivering of his lips more pronounced. He never looked up, and several times he covered his face with his hands. For weeks, for months, he had anticipated this hour; it seemed life could have nothing more painful in store, and must it be? Day by day he had asked himself this question; and now he was carried away with indignation at his wife's severity, and with shame at his weakness in yielding to her. What he had undergone the past four months he considered as undeserved; for though his sin had been great, his had been an unheard-of penance. He had married her in Weimar; what more could she ask? Yet she did. She allowed him to do as he wished with the boy--indeed, it was as if it were her own desire; but when he said they must keep from home until the excitement was over, she urged him to go to Vienna, that they might bring about the recognition of their marriage. He resisted, but she said: "My whole soul hangs on this one thing. Grant this request, and I will reward you well." "With what?" he thought. "With love and fidelity!" He had earned that before God and men by a greater sacrifice than any man of his position had ever made. Ought she not to be faithful to him, she for whose sake his best friends had been faithless, she for whom he had incurred so many slights? But his resistance grew weaker. His character was not adapted to resist a feeble will, much less this one of iron. Finally he yielded, because he thought she would see for herself, when in Vienna, the impracticability of her desire. "If you do not succeed, we will go to Italy for two years," he said, and to this she agreed. Convinced of the futility of her attempt, and annoyed at the gossip she was inciting, he watched her curiously. It was during the _régime_ of Metternich--a _régime_ which bowed only to the church, and therefore the more impossible. Whenever she spoke of it, he assured her that her object was unattainable.