teem I value, I am still
worthy; but if I permitted another man to love me, I should fall
indeed. The world is indulgent to those whose constancy covers, as
with a mantle, the irregularity of their happiness; but it is
pitiless to vice.

You see I feel neither disdain nor anger; I am answering your
letter frankly and with simplicity. You are young; you are
ignorant of the world; you are carried away by fancy; you are
incapable, like all whose lives are pure, of making the
reflections which evil suggests. But I will go still further.

Were I destined to be the most humiliated of women, were I forced
to hide fearful sorrows, were I betrayed, abandoned,--which, thank
God, is wholly impossible,--no one in this world would see me
more. Yes, I believe I should find courage to kill a man who,
seeing me in that situation, should talk to me of love.

You now know my mind to its depths. Perhaps I ought to thank you
for having written to me. After receiving your letter, and, above
all, after making you this reply, I could be at my ease with you
in Camille's house, I could act out my natural self, and be what
you ask of me; but I hardly need speak to you of the bitter
ridicule that would overwhelm me if my eyes or my manner ceased to
express the sentiments of which you complain. A second robbery
from Camille would be a proof of her want of power which no woman
could twice forgive. Even if I loved you, if I were blind to all
else, if I forgot all else, I should still see Camille! Her love
for you is a barrier too high to be o'erleaped by any power, even
by the wings of an angel; none but a devil would fail to recoil
before such treachery. In this, my dear Calyste, are many motives
which delicate and noble women keep to themselves, of which you
men know nothing; nor could you understand them, even though you
were all as like our sex as you yourself appear to be at this
moment.

My child, you have a mother who has shown you what you ought to be
in life. She is pure and spotless; she fulfils her destiny nobly;
what I have heard of her has filled my eyes with tears, and in the
depths of my heart I envy her. I, too, might have been what she
is! Calyste, that is the woman your wife should be, and such
should be her life. I will never send you back, in jest, as I have
done, to that little Charlotte, who would weary you to death; but
I do commend you to some