"What could I fear?" replied Juliette. "I knew so little of the affairs of life and the baseness of society that I utterly failed to understand that mystery. Leoni had told me that there was a terrible secret. I imagined a thousand romantic catastrophes. It was the fashion then in books to introduce characters burdened by the most extraordinary and improbable maledictions. Plays and novels alike teemed with sons of headsmen, heroic spies, virtuous murderers and felons. One day I read _Frederick Styndall_, another day, Cooper's _Spy_ fell into my hands. Remember that I was a mere child, and that my mind was far behind my heart in my passion. I fancied that society, being unjust and stupid, had placed Leoni under its ban for some sublime imprudence, some involuntary offence, or as the result of some savage prejudice. I will even admit that my poor girlish brain found an additional attraction in that impenetrable mystery, and that my woman's heart took fire at the opportunity of adventuring its entire destiny to repair a noble and poetic misfortune." "Leoni probably detected that romantic tendency and played upon it?" I said. "Yes," she replied, "he did. But if he took so much trouble to deceive me, it was because he loved me, because he was determined to have my love at any price." We were silent for a moment; then Juliette resumed her narrative. IX The winter came at last; we had made our plans to endure all its rigors rather than abandon our dear retreat. Leoni told me that he had never been so happy, that I was the only woman he had ever loved, that he was ready to renounce the world in order to live and die in my arms. His taste for dissipation, his passion for gambling--all had vanished, forgotten forever. Oh! how grateful I was to see that man, who shone so in society and was so flattered and courted, renounce without regret all the intoxicating joys of a life of excitement and festivities, to shut himself up with me in a cottage! And be sure, Don Aleo, that Leoni was not deceiving me at that time. While it is true that he had very strong reasons for keeping out of sight, it is none the less certain that he was happy in his retreat, and that he loved me there. Could he have feigned that perfect serenity during six whole months, unchanged for a single day? And why should he not have loved me? I was young and fair, I had left everything for him and I adored him. Understand, I am no longer under any delusion as to his character; I know everything and I will tell you the whole truth. His character is very ugly and very beautiful; very vile and very grand; when one has not the strength to hate the man, one must needs love him and become his victim.