had not even taken the trouble to disguise it from me. She could not hope that G——— M——— would leave her all night in vestal purity; and what torture there was for a lover in the thought of her contemplating any other alternative! Still, I considered that I had been partly to blame for her frailty, by having, in the first place, let her know the sentiments which G——— M——— entertained towards her, and then by having been weak enough to enter blindly into her rash project. Moreover, owing to a certain turn of mind, peculiar, perhaps, to myself, I was
touched by the ingenuousness of her confession, and by the frank and artless manner in which she related even those details which were most unpalatable to me. "She sins without any malice of intention," I said to myself. "She is frivolous and imprudent, but right-minded and sincere." Add to this the fact that my love for her was in itself enough to blind me to all her faults, and that I was more than satisfied by the hope of carrying her away from my rival that very evening. Nevertheless, I could not restrain myself from saying:
"But what of to-night? With whom were you going to spend it?"
This question, which I asked in a sad tone, utterly
