"Understand me, beloved, I do not wish to excuse my crime. I was never worthy of you. You were beauty, youth, and purity--all that is best, tenderest, and most loving in this world. I had lost the right to be loved by such a man as you. I ought to have told you the first day I met you. Then, if you had wished for me, you could have taken me and left me like a poor being that only lived for you, that was only made to please you a moment, to distract you and then say good-by. I thought of it, believe me, and I have paid very dearly for the movement not of pride, but of love. I had a horror of being despised by you. And then the woman that you had called into being in me was so different from what I had been before I knew you. I said to myself, 'I am not deceiving him.' And, believe me, I did not lie when I told you that I loved you. My heart was so completely changed. All! how I loved you! How I loved you! You will never know how much nor even I myself. It was something so deeply implanted in my heart, it was so sad when I thought of what might have been if I had only waited for you. "You see, Pierre, that I speak of myself in the past as one speaks of the dead. Do not be afraid. I have not any idea of ending my life. I have caused you too much sorrow to increase your suffering by remorse. I live, and I shall live, if that can be called living in a being who has known you, who has loved and been beloved by you, and who has lost you. I know that you are leaving Cannes, that you are going away to-morrow. I cannot think that you will leave me forever without speaking to me. My hand trembles even in writing. I cannot find the words with which to explain my thoughts. Yet it will be too cruel if you leave me without giving me the opportunity of making what excuse I have for the life I once led. If you were near me for only one hour, you could go away and then you would think differently of me. What once was can never be again. But I wish to carry with me into the solitude which will surround my life in future the consolation of thinking that you see me as I am, and that you do not believe me capable of something I have never committed. My beloved, the time is so short. You leave to-morrow. When you read this letter, if you do read it, we shall not even have an entire day to be in the same city. If you do read my poor letter, if it touches you, if you find that my request is not too great, come to me at the hour you used to come. At eleven o'clock I will wait for you in the hothouse. If you condemn me without any appeal, if you refuse to grant me this last interview, good-by again, and again good-by. Not a reproach will ever find place in my heart, and I shall always say forever and ever, 'Thanks, my beloved, for having loved me.'"