This epistle finished and written in the crabbed disguised penmanship it was part of my business to effect, I folded, sealed and addressed it, and summoning Vincenzo, bade him post it immediately. As soon as he had gone on this errand, I sat down to my as yet untasted breakfast and made some effort to eat as usual. But my thoughts were too active for appetite--I counted on my fingers the days--there were four, only four, between me and--what? One thing was certain--I must see my wife, or rather I should say my BETROTHED--I must see her that very day. I then began to consider how my courtship had progressed since that evening when she had declared she loved me. I had seen her frequently, though not daily--her behavior had been by turns affectionate, adoring, timid, gracious and once or twice passionately loving, though the latter impulse in her I had always coldly checked. For though I could bear a great deal, any outburst of sham sentiment on her part sickened and filled me with such utter loathing that often when she was more than usually tender I dreaded lest my pent-up wrath should break loose and impel me to kill her swiftly and suddenly as one crushes the head of a poisonous adder--an all-too-merciful death for such as she. I preferred to woo her by gifts alone--and her hands were always ready to take whatever I or others chose to offer her. From a rare jewel to a common flower she never refused anything--her strongest passions were vanity and avarice. Sparkling gems from the pilfered store of Carmelo Neri-trinkets which I had especially designed for her--lace, rich embroideries, bouquets of hot-house blossoms, gilded boxes of costly sweets--nothing came amiss to her--she accepted all with a certain covetous glee which she was at no pains to hide from me--nay, she made it rather evident that she expected such things as her right.

And after all, what did it matter to me--I thought--of what value was anything I possessed save to assist me in carrying out the punishment I had destined for her? I studied her nature with critical coldness--I saw its inbred vice artfully concealed beneath the affectation of virtue--every day she sunk lower in my eyes, and I wondered vaguely how I could ever have loved so coarse and common a thing! Lovely she certainly was--lovely too are many of the wretched outcasts who sell themselves in the streets for gold, and who in spite of their criminal trade are less vile than such a woman as the one I had wedded. Mere beauty of face and form can be bought as easily as one buys a flower--but the loyal heart, the pure soul, the lofty intelligence which can make of woman an angel--these are unpurchasable ware, and seldom fall to the lot of man. For beauty, though so perishable, is a snare to us all--it maddens our blood in spite of ourselves--we men are made so. How was it that I--even I, who now loathed the creature I had once loved--could not look upon her physical loveliness without a foolish thrill of passion awaking within me--passion that had something of the murderous in it--admiration that was almost brutal--feelings which I could not control though I despised myself for them while they lasted! There is a weak point in the strongest of us, and wicked women know well where we are most vulnerable. One dainty pin-prick well-aimed--and all the barriers of caution and reserve are broken down--we are ready to fling away our souls for a smile or a kiss. Surely at the last day when we are judged--and may be condemned--we can make our last excuse to the Creator in the word? of the first misguided man: "The woman whom thou gavest to be with me--she tempted me, and I did eat!"




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