"So pressing were his instances, so solemn his oaths, that they convinced me of the violence and sincerity of his passion. I listened and believed, and he prevailed. Yes, M. le Marquis, I believed his oaths of fidelity. I loved him; not so well as I love you; still I loved him. Alas, marquis! I ask you, for you know well, be it pride or be it self-devotion, what have I ever required in return for my love? Nothing but a steadfast observance of the faith pledged to me, and you have not now to learn how I have kept that which I myself plighted. I ask no contract; I demand no guarantee. I live upon the present without one thought of the past, or one anxiety for the future, confiding in the _honor_ of the man I love with a feeling of security, which is at once my joy and my pride; faithful, I never asked but for faith; and, poor as I am, have I not rejected offers to be rich? Thus much then have I done for you and for M. de Fosseux; but M. de Fosseux deceived me; he ceased to love me, he was in treaty for a wealthy bride, and, cowardly as perfidious, heaped upon me the outward signs and tokens of a love he no longer felt; and why? Because he wished not to abandon me till the last moment--because he wished to deceive me until he could no longer wear a mask. This, marquis, was what M. de Fosseux intended to do, and this was what he would have done had he lived one week longer. I knew the name of his betrothed; and I knew the amount of the dowry to which the cupidity of my lover was about to sacrifice me. Now, marquis, what did such perfidy deserve? What was a woman to do who had asked nothing, exacted nothing, and to whom so much had been promised? Her prospects blasted and her honor lost--a cherished inmate of your home, whilst the fancy lasts; but appetite once satiated, turned out without one----. This the return for all her constancy and devotion: disgrace, base desertion, and, as if injury were not enough, you add mockery and insult, by smiling in her face whilst you are preparing to pierce her to the heart." Whilst thus speaking (continued M. de Marigny), the looks of Mademoiselle d'Ermay assumed a yet more fierce expression, her voice became hoarser, her gestures more violent, and, with her increased agitation, whatever she had folded up in her dress returned a yet more alarming sound. As for me, frightened, appalled, my hands trembling, and my forehead bathed in a cold sweat, I attempted to mutter something, I knew not what. No, never did Clairon, nor Dusmenil, nor your Siddons, whom I had seen some years before in England, so freeze my blood in the deepest tragedy. Struck by the resemblance between my own conduct and that of M. de Fosseux, I at length exclaimed, "Eugenie! Eugenie! of whom are you speaking? What do you mean?"