"You are not, my dear Octave, the only man I have loved. There is hidden in my heart a fatal story that I wish you to know. My father destined me, when I was quite young, for the only son of an old friend. They were neighbors and each owned a little domain of almost equal value. The two families saw each other every day and lived, so to speak, together. My father died; my mother had been dead some time. I lived with an aunt whom you know. A journey she was compelled to take, forced her to confide me to the care of my future father-in-law. He called me his daughter and it was so well known about the country that I was to marry his son that we were allowed the greatest liberty together. "That young man, whose name you need not know, appeared to love me. What had been friendship from infancy, became love in time. He began to tell me of the happiness that awaited us; he spoke of his impatience, I was only one year younger than he; but he had made the acquaintance of a man of dissipated habits who lived in the vicinity, a sort of adventurer, and had listened to his evil suggestions. While I was yielding to his caresses with the confidence of a child, he resolved to deceive his father and to abandon me after having ruined me. "His father called us into his room one evening and, in the presence of the family, set the day of our wedding. The very evening before that day, he met me in the garden and spoke to me of love with more force than usual; he said that, since the time was set, we were just the same as married, and for that matter had been in the eyes of God, ever since our birth. I have no other excuse to offer than my youth, my ignorance and my confidence in him. I gave myself to him before becoming his wife, and eight days afterward he left his father's house; he fled with a woman with whom his new friend had made him acquainted; he wrote that he had set out for Germany and that we would never see him again.