"Sitting by my side during the long days, beneath the flowery bowers of the villa, the Count, as he said, saw through the darkness in which he had been enveloped--his eyes recovered their vision, and at last I appeared to him, for the first time, the most charming, the most adorable of women. Never was there a more eloquent tenderness than his--and to me who lived for him alone--whose image was ever before me, who had loved him in spite of his coldness and indifference, almost his contempt, to me he used this language of entreaty.... Yet he did so to a woman who loved him. A month passed in this cruel contest of love and duty. The contest was not equal, and passion triumphed. The Count had left the villa, but was concealed in the vicinity, and I saw him every day become more tender and affectionate. One must have suffered as I have to understand the intoxication of my happiness. To be loved by him had never seemed possible; and to possess this life-dream, to read in his looks a passion I alone had experienced hitherto, was a veil, thin indeed, but this prevented me from discerning how great was my fault. If it did become known to me, I loved it; for in my delirium I thought that I gave to this man a heart which belonged to him, and a person of which, in defiance of his rights, another was possessed. The other though, whom I doubly injured by this thought, had given me truly, loyally, and nobly, his heart, his rank, his name. So completely, however, was I led astray, that I censured the Duke for this very generosity. Sometimes, however, my life of love had its sorrows. The Count would be sad, and in his moments of melancholy, forgot my presence, and spoke slightingly on the volatility of women and of their caprices. I used to look at him with surprise, and seek to discover his secret thoughts. One day it was revealed to me. "'When women are young,' said he, 'they suffer themselves to be led away by brilliant exterior, and by that studied gallantry of which the French make such a display.' A few words full of venom escaped him involuntarily in relation to a rival that she whom he _had_ loved preferred to him. So shocked was I, that I asked him, if ill-humor at his repulse alone had led him to my feet. Without knowing how he had done so, the Count saw he had wounded me, and by increased care and tenderness lulled a suspicion which ultimately was to rise in all its power and agony.