Taking up the papers convulsively she read as follows:--"It is he. I have seen him again and free. I thought that he, like myself, had contracted a life-long obligation. Is this joy or grief? The ties he was about to form, the ties the mere thought of which caused me a terrible anguish, were imposed on me by myself. Oh my God! what have I done? What perfidious demon inspired me when I yielded to another than to him the _right_ to love me? When I promised a love I knew could be given to no other than to him? Why on the day of that fatal marriage did I see him only when I was about to leave the church? I would have broken off had I stood at the foot of the altar--I would have told him who was about to give me his name--ask me not to perjure myself! do not ask me to pledge you a faith I cannot keep! my heart, my soul, my love are his. I thought, alas! because he was not free that I too might cease to be. I fancied my agony to be power, my spite to be courage. When, however, I saw him pale and sombre, leaning against the door of the temple, I felt the coldness of death take possession of me, and I doubted long after that sad day, if I had seen a shadow, if some hallucinations of my senses had not evoked a phantom of my vanished love, to inspire me with eternal regret. Yet HE it was! HE it was! and when at the risk of my very life I would have flown towards that man, I was forced to follow another." The poor woman paused; for a mist obscured her sight, a distillation of burning tears. She resumed her task:--"I am a Duchess but of what value is that vain title which I sought, as an aegis against memory, to me? Have I found it such? For a long time, I thought so. I should, however, never have seen him again. I should have passed no happy days near him, and have been ignorant of the delirium and intoxication of his presence, which I never can forget. I had been the wife of the Duke of Palma six months, when a mission of the King of Naples forced him to leave me at a villa on the _Lago di Como_, while he went in a foreign country to discharge the duties his monarch had imposed on him. I scarcely dared to confess to myself, in spite of the kindness of the Duke, how I was delighted during his absence, for it gave me a liberty of mind and thought which was absolutely necessary to my heart. Resolved to discharge all my duties, I lived, or rather vegetated, in this existence, so unoccupied and objectless as all marriages contracted without love must be. Amid, however, the dead calm of a marriage contracted without love, there glittered sometimes a burst of passion repressed, but alas! not stifled. Dark passions filled my bosom, and I felt the poison of regret. I found myself often longing for my independence, which, however, would not have contributed to my happiness, but would at least have permitted me to indulge in my secret sorrow. My temporary solitude, therefore, became precious to me, for I