"I shall be absent but a very short period, a fortnight at the longest, and, as I before said, upon most urgent business; but in the meanwhile I intrust you with the affair for which I am anxious to engage the interest of Madame de Hansfeld, fully persuaded it could not be in safer or surer hands. So fare ye well for the present. Mind and call up all your beauty as you mingle in the gay world, for, if I have lost the insatiate vanity of the lover, I still retain that of the husband!" So saying M. de Brévannes touched the forehead of Bertha with his lips and went out. He had restrained himself long enough, and too long for his patience. When alone he gave full vent to the rage and fury which knew no bounds. The varied emotions so legibly depicted on the ingenuous countenance of Bertha while her husband was speaking, the sort of involuntary joy (of which she seemed almost instantly ashamed, though unable to conceal it) with which she heard the announcement of her future independence, her vague apprehensions, her hopes by turns awakened and restrained, all served to enlighten M. de Brévannes as to the state of Bertha's heart. He could not be mistaken--she loved. He was far too experienced in such matters to entertain the least doubt on the subject. He had, then, a rival, and his wife was deceiving him. It was therefore with a species of satisfaction, at once savage and revengeful, he thought of the profound security and blind confidence in which he had left Madame de Brévannes. CHAPTER XLII RESOLUTION The passion conceived by Madame de Hansfeld for M. de Morville had considerably augmented since her last interview during the Opera ball. This love was in the breast of Paula a singular mixture of noble and exalted sentiments and gloomy, sinister ideas. She would have thought it a degradation of the man she loved had she suffered him to break his oath; while, at the same time, she resolved, if not to encourage, at least to permit, Iris to carry on any plot she thought proper against the life of her husband, in order that she might be at liberty to espouse M. de Morville without his having in any manner broken his vow.