in me.
I do not say that it was altogether your fault, for an evil destiny
bound me to you, and it must seem odd to you when I say that, knowing
you for what you are, I still love you. And to fill up this void, to
trample down those surging memories, I have made myself a slave to my
ambition, and the acquisition of another power that you cannot
understand. The man you married me to is rich and a knight to-day. I
made him so. If I live another twenty years, his wealth shall be
colossal and his influence unbounded, and I will be one of the most
powerful women in the kingdom. Why do you suppose that I so fear your
treachery? Do you think that I should mind its being known that I had
thrown aside that poor fig-leaf, virtue--the green garment that marks
a coward or a fool; for, mark you, all women, or nearly all, would be
vicious if they dared. Fear and poverty of spirit restrain them, not
virtue. Why, it is by their vices, properly managed, that women have
always risen, and always will rise. To be really great, I think that a
woman must be vicious with discrimination, and I respect vice
accordingly. No, it is not that I fear. I am afraid because I have a
husband whose bitter resentment is justly piling up against me from
year to year, who only lies in wait for an opportunity to destroy me.
Nor is he my only enemy. In his skilful hands, the letters you possess
can, as society is in this country, be used so as to make me
powerless. Yes, George, all the good in me is dead; the mad love I
have given you is hourly outraged, and yet I cannot shake it off.
_There_ alone my strength fails me, and I am weak as a child. Only the
power to exercise my will, my sense of command over the dullards round
me, and a yet keener pleasure you do not know of, are left to me. If
these are taken away, what will my life be? A void, a waste, a howling
wilderness, a place where I will not stay! I had rather tempt the
unknown. Even in Hell there must be scope for abilities such as mine!"

She paused awhile, as if for an answer, and then went on--

"And as for you, poor creature that you are, words cannot tell how I
despise you. You discard me and my devotion, to follow a nature, in
its way, it is true, greater even than my own, representing the
principle of good, as I represent the principle of evil, but one to
which yours is utterly abhorrent. Can you mix light with darkness, or
filthy oil with water? As well hope to merge your life, black as it is