"Krzycki was once already condemned and lives, thanks to you, lady, but if he gets a bullet in his head, then he will marry no one." But she, hearing this, turned pale as a corpse; in the same moment she sprang at him with her finger-nails! "What!" she cried in a hoarse voice; "what! he! Let but a hair fall from his head, then, I will have you all--" Laskowicz's patience, however, was exhausted. He was irritated, torn internally and sick; hence, after her threat, a wave of bitterness and rage flooded his brains. He started up and, glaring in her eyes, shouted! "Do not threaten with betrayal, for that is death!" "Death?" she screamed. "Death! this is what life is to me!" And shoving her palm close to his face, she blew on it so that her breath moistened him, and repeated: "Look! This is what life is to me." "And to me," exclaimed Laskowicz. For an interval they stared in each other's eyes like two odious and despairing souls. He recovered his wits first, and clasping his head with both hands, said: "Oh, how unfortunate we are! oh!" "Yes! yes!" reiterated Panna Pauly. And she began to sob hysterically. Then he commenced to quiet her. He promised her that nothing should befall Krzycki and that his marriage would not under any circumstances take place. He said that at that moment he could not indeed disclose to her what measures would be adopted, but he assured her that neither he nor his party would show any consideration to a mere female bourgeois, as here was involved a higher social justice, which does not need to take into account any particular individual. Pauly only understood that that "low peasant" would not wed the young master of Jastrzeb, and became appeased in some measure: and afterwards, both, from necessity, became occupied with other matters. It was imperative that some kind of shelter be found for the young girl: so Laskowicz placed her with "a female associate" residing in the neighborhood, who immediately went for her wages and belongings. He himself returned to his own rooms and began to revolve in his mind how he could repay Panna Pauly for saving his life. And in this feeling of gratitude lay the first reason why he took the matter to heart. A second reason was his own ill-luck and ill-fated love for Marynia which made him sensitive to similar strifes; and the third was that "social justice" which he mentioned to Pauly. As to the third reason he felt, however, the necessity of deliberating with his own soul in order that when the time for action arrived his hands would be untied, and under the pressure of this necessity he began to reason in the following fashion: