"But, Signor, what have I said? What words have I uttered?" said the Duchess, every feature being instinct with terror. "Nothing, alas! that my heart has not long been aware of. He that you loved, you love still, and his coldness and insensibility for your devotion, makes you lament his ingratitude and indifference." The Duchess seemed, as it were, relieved of an enormous burden which oppressed her. She breathed more freely and murmured these words with a burst of gratitude to God who had preserved her--"He knows nothing." "Taddeo," said she, giving him her hand, "I pardon you, for I am myself guilty, very guilty in still preserving my old sentiments in the face of my new obligations, voluntarily contracted. I have, I am certain, lost the right to reproach you with a fault, which passion induced you to commit, while I commit one far greater. For pity's sake forget what you have heard, and to ask me to explain it would be an offence. Pity me in your heart. Ah! pity me, for I am most unfortunate." Then drying her eyes, she continued, "No more of this--be a friend to me as you promised six months ago, when we came to Paris. On this condition alone you know that I permitted you to see me. Now give me your arm, and let us return to the ball-room, whence, probably, our absence has been remarked." They walked in silence down the alley which led to the ball-room. Two hours after, all was calm and silent where every thing had been gay and brilliant. The lights were out, and the darkness of night replaced the thousand lamps which a few minutes before were seen to glitter within the palace windows. But one person in all the Hotel of the Duke of Palma was awake. A woman sat alone, in a room of rare elegance, still wearing her ball attire, but with her hair dishevelled and her heart crushed. Her eyes were fixed and dry, and yet red with the tears she had shed. She was in all the brilliancy of youth and beauty, but which was already defaced somewhat, by the iron claws of sorrow, which by sleepless nights and the ravages of jealousy seemed resolved yet more to lacerate her. With her head resting on her hands, beautiful and touching as Canova's Magdalen, she looked with sorrow over the papers which lay strewn on a rich ebony desk before her. A lamp, the upper portion of which was shrouded in blue tulle, cast a pale and sad light over her brow. Her fine white hand rested on the papers which she seemed afraid to touch. "No," said she, "it is impossible; all that these contain are but falsehoods. No, this journal of my heart, written by myself, day by day, cannot be a romance created by the imagination in its delirium. No! all I wrote there was true. I felt the joys and bitternesses, yet it now seems to me a dream. A dream! can it be a dream?"