distress, and I resolved to kill myself. I don't know whether
love of life, or the hope of wearying ill-fortune and of finding at
the bottom of the abyss the happiness which had always escaped me were,
unconsciously to myself, my advisers, or whether I was fascinated by the
arguments of a young man from Vendome, who, for the last two years, has
wound himself about me like a serpent round a tree,--in short, I know
not how it is that I accepted, for a payment of three hundred thousand
francs, the odious mission of making an unknown man fall in love with
me and then betraying him. I met you; I knew you at once by one of
those presentiments which never mislead us; yet I tried to doubt my
recognition, for the more I came to love you, the more the certainty
appalled me. When I saved you from the hands of Hulot, I abjured the
part I had taken; I resolved to betray the slaughterers, and not
their victim. I did wrong to play with men, with their lives, their
principles, with myself, like a thoughtless girl who sees only
sentiments in this life. I believed you loved me; I let myself cling to
the hope that my life might begin anew; but all things have revealed my
past,--even I myself, perhaps, for you must have distrusted a woman so
passionate as you have found me. Alas! is there no excuse for my love
and my deception? My life was like a troubled sleep; I woke and thought
myself a girl; I was in Alencon, where all my memories were pure and
chaste. I had the mad simplicity to think that love would baptize me
into innocence. For a moment I thought myself pure, for I had never
loved. But last night your passion seemed to me true, and a voice
cried to me, 'Do not deceive him.' Monsieur le marquis," she said, in a
guttural voice which haughtily challenged condemnation, "know this; I am
a dishonored creature, unworthy of you. From this hour I accept my fate
as a lost woman. I am weary of playing a part,--the part of a woman to
whom you had brought back the sanctities of her soul. Virtue is a burden
to me. I should despise you if you were weak enough to marry me. The
Comte de Bauvan might commit that folly, but you--you must be worthy of
your future and leave me without regret. A courtesan is too exacting; I
should not love you like the simple, artless girl who felt for a moment
the delightful hope of being your companion, of making you happy, of
doing you honor, of becoming a noble wife. But I gather from that futile
hope the courage to r