"MARGHERITA,--I have come in after roaming wildly through the streets. Every minute I think I am going mad. It is this very fear moves me, after long and miserable indecision--to confide to you the grief which is killing me. I will cut it short. "Margherita, you know what I am; the son of a sin, deserted by a mother who was more sinned against than sinning. I was born under a bad star, and I have to expiate sins which were not my own. I have dragged with me into a gulf from which I can never escape, that creature whom I love more than all the rest of the world. Thee, Margherita! Forgive me! forgive me! This is my greatest grief which I shall feel for the rest of my life. Listen. My unhappy mother is alive; after an existence of misery and sin, she has risen again before me like a ghost. She is wretched, ill, grown old with suffering and privation. My duty, you yourself will say it at once, is to redeem her. I have resolved to live with her, to sacrifice, if need be, life itself to fulfil my duty. Margherita, what more can I say? Never as at this moment have I felt the need of showing you all my soul. It is like a stormy sea, and words fail me at this moment which is the turning point of my life. I have your kisses still on my lips, and I tremble with love and with grief. Margherita, I am in your hands. Have pity on me and on yourself too. Be what I have always dreamed you are. Think how short life is, and that love is the only reality of life, and that no one in the world will love you as I do. Don't tread out our happiness for the sake of worldly prejudices, prejudices invented by envious men to make all equally unhappy. You are good, you are above me. Say to me one word of hope for the future. And remember, whatever may happen, I shall be yours for all eternity. Write to me at once. ANANIA." "_September_ 19_th._ "ANANIA,--Your letter seems a horrid dream. I also have no words to express myself. Come to-night at the usual time and we will decide our fate together. It is I who should say 'my life is in your hands.' Come. I wait for you anxiously. MARGHERITA." "_September_ 19_th._ "MARGHERITA,--Your little letter has frozen my heart. My fate is already decided, but a thread of hope still guides me. No, I dare not come. I will not come unless you first give me a word of hope. Then I will fly to you, kneel at your feet, and thank you and worship you as a saint. But now--no, I cannot. I will not. I abide by what I wrote to you yesterday. Write to me, do not kill me with this terrible suspense.--Your most unhappy. ANANIA." "_September_ 19_th._ Midnight.