"The marriage pleased my mother, and assured me a large fortune, consequently I unfortunately yielded to my mother's persuasions all the more readily as I, too, was dazzled by the advantages of such a position; so I married M. d'Infreville, without realising, alas! what grievous obligations I was incurring, and at what a price I was selling my liberty. Though I have abundant cause to complain of my husband, my own wrong-doing prevents any recrimination on my part. Without trying to excuse my own weakness, I will endeavour to state the facts of the case, clearly and impartially. M. d'Infreville, though he should be in his prime, is a valetudinarian, because, in his youth, he plunged into all sorts of excesses. He is morose, because he regrets the past; imperious and stern, because he has no heart. In his eyes, I have never been anything but a penniless young girl, whom he condescended to marry in order to make a sort of nurse out of me, and for a long time I accepted this rôle, and performed the duties it involved religiously,--this rôle which was not only so trying but also so humiliating and disgraceful, because the attentions I paid my husband were not from the heart; and too late, alas! I realised how vile my conduct had been." "Valentine--" "No, Florence, no, the term is none too severe. I married M. d'Infreville without love. I married him because he was rich. I sold myself to him, body and soul, and such conduct is vile and disgraceful, I tell you." "You blame yourself too much, Valentine. You were not thinking as much about yourself as you were about your mother, I am sure." "And my mother was less solicitous about herself than about me. M. d'Infreville's wealth made filial deference on my part only too easy. At first, I was resigned to my fate, at least in a measure. After our marriage, my husband's health was so poor as to confine him to the house most of the time; but after a few months had elapsed, a marked change for the better became apparent in his condition, thanks to my nursing, perhaps; but from that time his habits, too, underwent an entire change. I saw him but seldom; he was scarcely ever at home, and I soon heard that he had a mistress." "Poor Valentine!" "A woman known to all Paris. My husband gave her a magnificent establishment, and made so little effort to conceal his relations with her that I learned all the particulars of the scandalous affair through public hearsay. I ventured to remonstrate with M. d'Infreville, not from any feeling of jealousy, Heaven knows! but I begged him, out of consideration for me, to have a little more regard for appearances. Even these very temperate reproaches irritated my husband, and he asked me, in the most insolent and disdainful manner, what right I had to meddle in this matter. He reminded me that I was indebted to him for a lot to which I could not otherwise have aspired, and that, as he had married me without a dowry, I had no right to make the slightest complaint."