are the first to hear my horrible story. I will try to have
strength enough to go on to the end of it. You must know everything so
that you, whom I know to be a kind-hearted man as well as a man of the
world, should have a sincere desire to aid me with all your power.

"'Listen to me.

"'Before my marriage, I loved a young man, whose suit was rejected by
my family because he was not rich enough. Not long afterwards, I
married a man of great wealth. I married him through ignorance,
through obedience, through indifference, as young girls do marry.

"'I had a child, a boy. My husband died in the course of a few years.

"'He whom I had loved had got married, in his turn. When he saw that I
was a widow, he was crushed by horrible grief at knowing he was not
free. He came to see me; he wept and sobbed so bitterly before my eyes
that it was enough to break my heart. He at first came to see me as a
friend. Perhaps I ought not to have seen him. What would you have? I
was alone, so sad, so solitary, so hopeless! And I loved him still.
What sufferings we women have sometimes to endure!

"'I had only him in the world, my parents also being dead. He came
frequently; he spent whole evenings with me. I should not have let him
come so often, seeing that he was married. But I had not enough of
will-power to prevent him from coming.

"'How am I to tell you what next happened?... He became my lover. How
did this come about? Can I explain it? Can anyone explain such things?
Do you think it could be otherwise when two human beings are drawn
towards each other by the irresistible force of a passion by which
each of them is possessed? Do you believe, monsieur, that it is always
in our power to resist, that we can keep up the struggle for ever, and
refuse to yield to the prayers, the supplications, the tears, the
frenzied words, the appeals on bended knees, the transports of
passion, with which we are pursued by the man we adore, whom we want
to gratify even in his slightest wishes, whom we desire to crown with
every possible happiness, and whom, if we are to be guided by a
worldly code of honor, we must drive to despair. What strength would
it not require? What a renunciation of happiness? what self-denial?
and even what virtuous selfishness?

"'In short, monsieur, I was his mistress; and I was happy. I
became--and this was my greatest weakness and my greatest piece of
cowardice--I became his wife's friend.

"'We brought up my son to