Romeo came back from Mantua to meet Juliet at the vault, where he no doubt intended to have a final explanation with her and her family, to explain the whole thing: his engagement to me, and the impossibility of his contracting any alliance with the Capulet family, especially as he had very strong principles on this point. But when he got to the tomb he found the County Paris, who was nominally engaged to Juliet, and of course extremely angry to find a Montague in such a place. They fought, and Paris killed Romeo, thus putting an end to all Lady Capulet’s intrigues. But she was not to be defeated thus. She had already bribed an old Franciscan monk, called Friar Laurence, to say that he had secretly _married_ Juliet and Romeo, and her nurse (a horrible old woman) corroborated the friar’s evidence. And so, with very much solemnity and fuss, a reconciliation was brought about between the two families, and they say that Benvolio, Montague’s nephew, is to marry Katherine, Lady Capulet’s niece by marriage, and thus the quarrel between the families has finally been settled and Lady Capulet has got her way. I don’t mind the two families being reconciled in the least; in fact we are all very glad of it, as life in Verona was made quite intolerable by their constant brawling and quarrelling. But what I do think is unfair, and what is particularly irritating to _me_, is that everybody, even Papa and Mamma, take it for granted that Romeo was really in love with Juliet, and had given up all thoughts of me. Nobody knows the truth except me, and I cannot tell it without making myself appear conceited and ridiculous. You can imagine how irritating this is. Of course, when all this happened I was so overcome by the shock that I was very ill and did not care what was said, one way or the other. Papa and Mamma had to take me to Venice for a few days, as I was in such a state of nerves. Now, the change of air has done me good, and I am slowly getting better again. I am told that everybody believes that Romeo and Juliet were married by Friar Laurence. Of course, once such a legend gets about nothing will ever make people think the contrary. But even if they _were_ married it would not really affect me, for it was a sheer case of coercion. If Romeo did marry Juliet he did it because he could not help himself, after having been discovered in her garden by that old cat Lady Capulet, who is a very, very wicked woman, and capable of anything. In fact I am not at all sure that she did not poison her daughter on purpose, and, so bring about the reconciliation between the two families without having all the trouble of facing and defeating her husband’s opposition to the match.