‘Then he was really terrified, and showed the abject coward which in his soul he is. He began to whine and cry and whimper, and to tell me how he loved me, and that it was because he saw that other people loved me also, and he could not bear it, that he was jealous and fretful and irritable. He said he had always adored me from the very first; he said a great many things the hearing of which made me sick with rage. Then he whined and prayed and cried, and begged me to spare his life, and then he said he trusted me and always had trusted me. He was so pitiful, so abject, so utterly contemptible, that I began to feel as if killing him would be like stepping on some crawling beetle or caterpillar and killing it--an ugly, repulsive little object, padre mio, but quite pitiably helpless when confronted with a human being.... And then it was true: he did trust me. I never yet deceived anyone who trusted in me. I became recklessly contemptuous of all that might happen. I took my resolution. Physically I would spare him, morally I would slay him. I was a little mad, I think, or was I sane then, and am I a little mad now?’ She looked at him inquiringly. ‘You are sane enough now, carissima, and you were sane then. I see nothing mad in anything you have said or done,’ her father told her. ‘Perhaps.’ She sighed profoundly, then went on: ‘I said to him, “Listen; I am going to give you the hypodermic injection; just as much as the doctor has ordered, and no more. It appears to me that I am weak and foolish to neglect the opportunity which the gods afford me, but I will do it. Then, as soon as you are asleep and unable to insult anyone, I will call your servant and ask him to sit with you, and then I shall leave this house, never to return to it. I will not tell you where I am going, nor to whom. I am going to be happy. In spite of what you say and of what you think, I am going to be happy and free, even though you are here, alive, and I am married to you.” ‘He stared at me, and said: “I will not have any of your morphia. I choose to be awake. I do not want my servant; I want you, and you must sit with me, not he. I won’t be drugged to sleep that you may go to your lover.” ‘“You cannot help yourself, mio caro,” I said to him. It was the first time in all those years that I had called him so. “I am going to leave you; that is all you need to know.” I took his arm, and he could not resist. I could have shrieked and shuddered merely to touch him, but I went through with it all. I measured the dose, and my hand did not shake for an instant. “You see,” I said, “so many drops: watch me while I drop them--so.”