FLORENCIO. "I never trusted but one friend, my friend Florencio." He means me. CAROLINA. Yes, yes; he means you. But go on, go on. FLORENCIO. I wonder what he can be driving at. Ah! What does he say? That you, that I.... CAROLINA. Go on, go on. FLORENCIO. "This woman and this man, the two greatest, the two pure, the two unselfish passions of my life, in whom my very being was consumed--how can I bring myself to confess it? I hardly dare admit it to myself! They are in love--they love each other madly--in secret--perhaps without even suspecting themselves." CAROLINA. What do you think of that? FLORENCIO. Suspecting themselves.... "They are struggling to overcome their guilty passion, but how long will they continue to struggle? Yet I am sorry for them both. What ought I to do? I cannot sleep." CAROLINA. What do you say? FLORENCIO. Impossible! He never wrote such letters. Besides, if he did, they ought never to have been published. CAROLINA. But true or false, they have been published, and here they are. Ah! But this is nothing! You ought to see what he says farther on. He goes on communicating his observations, and there are some, to be perfectly frank, which nobody could have made but himself. FLORENCIO. You don't mean to tell me that you think these letters are genuine? CAROLINA. They might be for all we know. He gives dates and details. FLORENCIO. And all the time we thought he suspected nothing! CAROLINA. You do jump so at conclusions, Florencio. How could he suspect? You know how careful we were about everything, no matter what happened, so as not to hurt his feelings. FLORENCIO. This only goes to show all the good that it did us. CAROLINA. He could only suspect--that it was the truth; that we were loving in silence. FLORENCIO. Then perhaps you can explain to me what was the use of all this silence? Don't you see that what he has done now is to go and blurt the whole thing out to this rascal Casalonga?--an unscrupulous knave whose only interest in the matter is to turn these confidences to his own advantage! It is useless to attempt to defend it. Such foolishness was unpardonable. I should never have believed it of my friend. If he had any doubts about me--about us--why didn't he say so? Then we could have been more careful, and have done something to ease his mind. But this notion of running and telling the first person who happens along.... What a position does it leave me in? In what light do we appear at this time? Now, when everybody is paying respect to his memory, and I have put myself to all this trouble in order to raise money for this monument--what are people going to think when they read these things? CAROLINA. I always said that we would have trouble with that monument. FLORENCIO. How shall I have the face to present myself to-morrow before the monument? CAROLINA. My sisters-in-law were right. We are going to be conspicuous.