“And the men admire me! Is all my youth to be wasted in prudery and pretending I do not enjoy that which is the breath of my life--the admiration of the other sex? O! you needn’t glare at me like that! You need not attempt to strike me! I am well provided against your assaults! And you are not the only one who has suffered through my being _femme galante!_ Sorrento writhed under the knowledge more than you do, and he tried to avenge himself on me, but you see it was useless! He believed me to be a model of all the virtues, to the day of his death--perhaps even now he does the same. But you men are all alike. Fools where you should be wise, and blind where you ought to see! Sorrento smiled when he should have been weeping, and struck when there was no cause. Do you remember the story of Centi?” “The man for whose sake Leonora deceived poor Ricardo! Yes! I see now, he was right! You women are all alike! Born to lie and to deceive those who trust in you! He did well to send her out of a world which she disgraced.” At this assertion, Hannah laughed jeeringly. “O! she was none the worse for it, you may depend! When earthly lives are cut shorter than the Creator intended, either by our own hands, or those of others, they are not ended, though mortals may think so! We all live on this earth just as long as was originally meant for us--neither more nor less--in the flesh or out of it--but still here,--sometimes for our own punishment, sometimes for that of others, but still here,--_here_--where you and I stand to-day. Don’t waste your pity on Leonora, for she does not need it!” “You defend her action--doubtless you sympathise with her crime,” said the Baron, sarcastically. “Perhaps you would wish to copy her example, that is, if you have not already done so!” “You are right,” replied the Marchesa, “I sympathise with her deeply. She was young and beautiful and admired, and she loved life, and she hadn’t fair play. You think with me, surely, that Sorrento did her a grievous and irreparable wrong, in sending her so abruptly and cruelly from a world she loved!” “I do not! I think that she was rightly served for her infidelity, and that she paid too little for her crimes. Her husband only took his just revenge. Such women are better out of the world than in it!” “So that is your opinion,” said the Marchesa, looking him straight in the eyes, “what then of the way he met his own death? Was _that_ not a just revenge also? a righteous retribution for the way he treated Leonora? Was I not justified (who met my death at his hands) in sending him also into another world, when it suited my convenience, and he interfered with my plans?” “You--_you?_” stammered the Baron, falling back a pace or two. A light broke in upon him--a light which seemed to make both the Past and Present clear--which absolved the innocent and condemned the guilty.