"Another thing. You went away without saying you forgive me for

the wicked duplicity I practised upon you. It was very wrong, I

suppose, and yet for my life I cannot get up any real contrition

on the subject. There's always some duplicity in a woman. It is

the badge of every daughter of Eve, and it must come out

somewhere. In my case it came out in loving you to all the lengths

and ends of love, and drawing you on to loving me. I ought to be

ashamed, but I'm not--I'm glad.

"I did love first, and, of course, I knew you from the

beginning, and when you wrote about being in love with some one

else, I knew quite well you meant me. But it was so delicious to

pretend not to know, to come near and then to sheer off again, to

touch and then to fly, to tempt you and then to run away, until a

strong tide rushed at me and overwhelmed me, and I was swooning in

your arms at last.

"Dearest, don't think I made light of the obstacles you urged

against our union. I knew all the time that the risks of marriage

were serious, though perhaps I am not in a position even yet to

realise how serious they may be. Only I knew also that the dangers

were greater still if we kept apart, and that gave me courage to

be bold and to defy conventions.

"Which brings me to my last point, and please prepare to be

serious, and bend your brow to that terrible furrow which comes

when you are fearfully in earnest. What you said of your enemies

being merciless, and perhaps watching me and putting pressure upon

me to injure you, is only too imminent a danger. The truth is that

I have all along known more than I had courage to tell, but I was

hoping you would understand, and now I tremble to think how I have

suffered myself to be silent.

"The Minghelli matter is an alarming affair, for I have reason to

believe that the man has lit on the name you bore in England, and

that when he returns to Rome he will try to fix it upon you by

means of me. This is fearful to contemplate, and my heart quakes

to think of it. But happily there is a way to checkmate such a

devilish design, and it is within your own power to save me from

life-long remorse.

"I don't think the laws of any civilized country compel a man's

wife to compromise him, and thinking of this gives me courage to

be unmaidenly and say: Don't let it be long, dearest! I could die

to bring it to pass in a moment. With all my great, great

happiness, I shall have the heartache until it is done, and only

when it is over shall I begin to live.




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