"It is perhaps natural that you should find it hard to forgive me,

but you might at least write and put me out of suspense. I think

you would do so if you knew how much I suffer. Your great soul

cannot intend to torture me. To-night the burden of things is

almost more than I can bear, and I am nearly heartbroken. It is my

dark hour, dearest, and if you had to say you could never forgive

me, I think I could easier reconcile myself to that. I have been

so happy since I began to love you; I shall always love you even

if I have to lose you, and I shall never, never be sorry for

anything that has occurred.

"Not receiving any new letters from you, I am going back on the

old ones, and there is a letter of only two months ago in which

you speak of just such a case as mine. May I quote what you say?

"'Yet even if she were not so (i.e. worthy of your love and

friendship), even if there were, as you say, a fault in her, who

am I that I should judge her harshly? ... I reject the monstrous

theory that while a man may redeem the past a woman never can....

And if she has sinned as I have sinned, and suffered as I have

suffered, I will pray for strength to say, 'Because I love her we

are one, and we stand or fall together.' "It is so beautiful that I am even happy while my pen copies the

sweet, sweet words, and I feel as I did when the old priest spoke

so tenderly on the day I confessed, telling me I had committed no

sin and had nothing to repent of. Have I never told you about

that? My confessor was a Capuchin, and perhaps I should have

waited for his advice before going farther. He was to consult his

General or his Bishop or some one, and to send for me again.

"But all that is over now, and everything depends upon you. In any

case, be sure of one thing, whatever happens. Bruno has taught me

a great lesson, and there is not anything your enemies can do to

me that will touch me now. They have tried me already with

humiliation, with poverty, with jealousy, and even with the shadow

of shame itself. There is nothing left but death. And death

itself shall find me faithful to the last. Good-bye! Your poor

unforgiven girl, ROMA."

The morning after writing this letter Roma received a visit from one of

the Noble Guard. It was the Count de Raymond.




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