cannot pretend to have wiped out my sin with ten days of incessant
weeping. These tears are sufficiently explained by the sad state in
which my husband has returned from Padua, reduced to the last extremity.
They will therefore appear only fitting and proper in the sight of
those who may observe them. Alas! would that they were simply shed for
my poor dying husband! I cannot say this; and so I have a double crime
to make me loathe myself.

"Your friend is a demon, who carried me beyond my senses. He persuaded
me that he was so entirely your friend, that if I did not listen to his
suit I should affront _you_. You need not believe what seems incredible;
yet I swear to God that he confused me so and filled my brain with such
strange thoughts that I gave way in blindness, thinking I was paying you
a courtesy, knowing not what I was doing, nor that I was plunging into
the horrible abyss in which I woke to find myself the moment after I had
fallen.

"Leave me to my wretchedness, and shun me. I am unworthy of you; I
confess it. I deserve nothing but to die in my despair. Farewell--a
terrible farewell! Farewell for ever!"

I could not have conceived it possible that any one should justify such
conduct on such grounds. Yet the letter, though it did not change my
mind, disturbed my heart. I reflected on her painful circumstances, with
her husband at the point of death. It occurred to me that I could at
least intervene as a friend, without playing the part of lover any more.
Yet I dared not trust myself to meet the woman who for a whole year had
been the object of my burning passion. At the cost of my life, I was
resolved to stamp out all emotions for one who had proved herself alien
to my way of thinking and of feeling about love. Moreover, I suspected
that she might be exaggerating the illness of her husband, in order to
mollify me. I subdued my inclinations, and refrained from answering her
letter or from seeing her.

The fact is that I soon beheld the funeral procession of her husband
pass beneath my windows, with the man himself upon the bier. I could no
longer refuse credence to her letter.

This revived my sympathy for the unhappy, desolate, neglected beauty. I
was still hesitating, when I met a priest of my acquaintance who told me
that he was going to pay a visit of condolence to the youthful widow.
"You ought to come with me," said he. "It is an act of piety toward one
of your neighbours." I seized the occasion offe