"Yes, you had humiliated me overmuch! I must say it to you once straight out. After reading your letter I would have committed any crime only to free myself from the insulting weight of your reproaches. It was driving me mad. It was a degrading accusation which you had brought against me! And I wanted to get you back--as much out of pride as passion! To get you back, not by force, not by love, but by money. That was my obsession. Money--money at all costs! So I went and gambled. And I took the post which I did not particularly admire. I offered myself to Madame. That was my crime, because now I recognise that Cavaliere R---- was only doing precisely what I did myself a little later." Regina listened and was silent, but she shook her head. He was lying, still lying. He was accusing himself of venial errors to make her believe him innocent of his real sin. Lies--always lies; and yet---- "I thought you had perhaps repented and would come home; but by this time I knew you! Your letter, your manner, had revealed your character. You would come home to live with me, perhaps resigned, perhaps not, but certainly unhappy. And I was ready to give my blood to prevent that! I wanted you happy. I loved you, Regina, just for your pretensions, which proved you the delicate, fastidious creature, above me by birth and by breeding. Who, you say, can know the dark secrets of his own heart? In a few days I had become another man. I dared to improve my position. I succeeded. And now you blame me for what I have done for you--only for you!" Regina made no answer. He also kept silence, perhaps thinking her convinced. They went on a little way. A light-haired man, dressed like a Protestant minister, had come up with them, and walked by their side. Carts, laden with bottles, passed, and carriages going to Acqua Acetosa. Regina thought-- "He doesn't want my pity. He was driven mad by humiliation! I see. Perhaps he thought I should come home only to torment him, and that presently I should desert him again. And I am still trying to persuade myself he is innocent, while he doesn't even know how to keep up the lie! Yet he has been lying for two years, every day, every hour, every minute. How, how has he been able to do it? Well, and wasn't I brooding over my project of flight secretly for days and for months? Was not that also treason? And are we not both lying now? Why all these vain words, these _sous-entendus_, if we are not each in turn trying to deceive the other? What is he thinking at this moment? What do I know of his soul, or he of mine? We have always mistaken each other, and we mistake more than ever at this moment. No, we do not know each other. We are more of strangers to one another than to that man passing along at our side. We have shared our bed and our board, we have a child, part of ourselves, and yet we are strangers! We are enemies--we offend each other; each in our turn, we hide that we may wound deeper!"