that
Bruno is being tempted to betray you. If I could only take his
place! _Would their plots have any effect upon me?_ I should die
first.

"And now about my friend. I can hardly hold my pen when I write of
her. What you say is so good, so noble. I might have known what
you would think, and yet....

"Dearest, how can I go on? Can't you divine what I wish to tell
you? Your letter compels me to confess. Come what may, I can hold
off no longer. Didn't you guess who my poor friend was? I thought
you would remember our former correspondence when you pretended to
love somebody else. You haven't thought of it apparently, and that
is only another proof--a bitter sweet one this time--of your love
and trust. You put me so high that you never imagined that I could
be speaking of myself. I was, and my poor friend is my poor self.

"It has made me suffer all along to see what a pedestal of purity
you placed me on. The letters you wrote before you told me you
loved me, when you were holding off, made me ashamed because I
knew I was not worthy. More than once when you spoke of me as so
good, I couldn't look into your eyes. I felt an impulse to cry,
'No, no, no,' and to smirch the picture you were painting. Yet how
could I do it? What woman who loves a man can break the idol in
his heart? She can only struggle to lift herself up to it. That
was what I tried to do, and it is not my fault that it is not
done.

"I have been much to blame. There were moments when duty should
have made me speak. One such moment was before we married. Do you
remember that I tried to tell you something? You were kind, and
you would not listen. 'The past is past,' you said, and I was only
too happy to gloss it over. You didn't know what I wished to say,
or you would not have silenced me. I knew, and I have suffered
ever since. I _had_ to speak, and you see how I have spoken. And
now I feel as if I had tricked you. I have got you to commit
yourself to opinions and to a line of conduct. Forgive me! I will
not hold you to anything. Take it all back, and I shall have no
right to complain.

"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 _di