"Ah! you do not know," continued she, and with her hand she bade him listen, "what those long hours of expectation are, when every noise seems to announce the coming of the person you love--when the hope having been twenty times deceived, the ear rather than the heart listens with the anxiety of death to the sound of every carriage which passes by, but does not stop at your door--to the bell which announces another visitor than the one who is expected. You do not know the torment of those wretched evenings when alone, with no companion but sorrow--you see ever before you your devotion to the one man all the time staring you in the face, him attracted elsewhere by other charms. The soul that suffers thus, by some instinctive powers, sees him approach every rival, become intoxicated by her glance, listen to her voice, take her hand stealthily, live in her life, while she dies a thousand times an hour--a thousand deaths as often as despair passes a picture before her. Do you see, Count, how horrible all this is? This is murderous, though time must elapse before the deadly poison takes effect on the heart. In such cases one who does not die rapidly is mad. Yesterday I had in my power the means of avoiding such tortures." Completely exhausted, the Duchess fell back on the cushion. The eyes of the Count glistened with tears, and he knelt before the poor woman who had suffered so much for him. "Felina," said he, "until to-day I thought courage consisted in braving danger, and even death: I now know that I have only to unveil my heart to you to prove that my daring did not need that I should contend with the ocean, be immured in a dungeon, and bare my neck to the axe. I will have that courage, for to me it is a duty, and I will not shrink from it. When I met you on the Lago di Como--when sad at the fact that I had been deserted by men who did not know me, by the woman I adored, I saw your immense tenderness unfolded to me, when you uttered those passionate words which my heart had no power then of understanding, I fancied that I had forgotten the past in the charms of a present full of love and intoxicating passion. I told you all I felt, and was sincere and happy. I remembered what you had done for me, and I fancied I had found the angel of my existence in you. Alas! a few months after, the bandage was torn from my brow, and, excuse me, but all I thought dead in my soul became more animated than ever. I saw my tenderness was the offspring of friendship, that my love changed into deep affection, which, however, was not of the kind you expected from me. With terror and despair I discovered that I was ungrateful to you. Twenty times I was on the point of making this painful confession, yet as many times I felt my strength fail. Now, though, when you have wished to die for the unworthy man for whom you would have made such a sacrifice, when you have appealed to my honor, I must speak to you, and avow to you my true