"Besides, there are features in my own case which I did not
present to you in my friend's. One of them was the fear of being
found out. Dearest, I must not shield myself behind the sweet
excuse you find for me. I did think of the other man. It wasn't
that I was afraid that he would intimidate me, and so corrupt my
love. Not all the tyrannies of the world could do that now. But if
from revenge or a desire to wrest me away from you by making you
cast me off he told you his story before I had told you mine! That
was a day-long and night-long terror, and now I confess it lest
you should think me better than I am.
"Another thing you did not know. Dearest, I would give my life to
spare you the explanation, but I must tell you everything. You
know who the man is, and it is true before God that he alone was
to blame. But my own fault came afterwards. Instead of cutting him
off, I continued to be on good terms with him, to take the income
he allowed me from my father's estate, and even to think of him as
my future husband. And when your speech in the piazza seemed to
endanger my prospects I set out to destroy you.
"It is terrible. How can I tell you and not die of shame? Now you
know how much I deceived you, and the infamy of my purpose makes
me afraid to ask for pardon. To think that I was no better than a
Delilah when I met you first! But Heaven stepped in and saved you.
How you worked upon me! First, you re-created my father for me,
and I saw him as he really was, and not as I had been taught to
think of him. Then you gave me my soul, and I saw myself. Darling,
do not hate me. Your great heart could not be capable of a cruelty
like that if you knew what I suffered.
"Last of all love came, and I wanted to hold on to it. Oh, how I
wanted to hold on to it! That was how it came about that I went on
and on without telling you. It was a sort of gambling, a kind of
delirium. Everything that happened I took as a penance. Come
poverty, shame, neglect, what matter? It was only wiping out a
sinful past, and bringing me nearer to you. But when at last he
who had injured me threatened to injure you through me, I was in
despair. You could never imagine what mad notions came to me then.
I even thought of killing myself, to end and cover up everything.
But no, I could not break your heart like that. Besides, the very
act would have told you something, and it was terrible to think
that when I was dead you might find out all this pitiful story.