physical pains which I am now suffering as an expiation.  I thank you a thousand times for having recalled me to myself, and you may be certain that for the future I will keep better control over myself; nothing shall make me doubt your love.  But, darling, what do you say of C——­ C——?  Is she not an incarnate angel who can be compared to no one but you?  You love us both equally.  I am the only one weak and faulty, and you make me ashamed of myself.  Yet I feel that I would give my life for her as well as for you.  I feel curious about one thing, but I cannot trust it to paper.  You will satisfy that curiosity the first time I shall be able to go to the casino before two days at the earliest.  I will let you know two days beforehand.  In the mean time, I entreat you to think a little of me, and to be certain of my devoted love.  Adieu.”

The next morning Laura found me sitting up in bed, and in a fair way to recover my health.  I requested her to tell C——­ C——­ that I felt much better, and I gave her the letter I had written.  She had brought me one from my dear little wife, in which I found enclosed a note from M——­ M——.  Those two letter were full of tender expressions of love, anxiety for my health, and ardent prayers for my recovery.

Six days afterwards, feeling much stronger, I went to Muran, where the keeper of the casino handed me a letter from M——­ M——.  She wrote to me how impatient she was for my complete recovery, and how desirous she was to see me in possession of her casino, with all the privileges which she hoped I would retain for ever.

“Let me know, I entreat you,” she added, “when we are likely to meet again, either at Muran or in Venice, as you please.  Be quite certain that whenever we meet we shall be alone and without a witness.”

I answered at once, telling her that we would meet the day after the morrow at her casino, because I wanted to receive her loving absolution in the very spot where I had outraged the most generous of women.

I was longing to see her again, for I was ashamed of my cruel injustice towards her, and panting to atone for my wrongs.  Knowing her disposition, and reflecting calmly upon what had taken place, it was now evident to me that what she had done, very far from being a mark of contempt, was the refined effort of a love wholly devoted to me.  Since she had found out that I was the lover of her young friend, could she imagine that my heart belonged only to herself?  In the same way that her love for me did not prevent her from being compliant with the ambassador, she admitted the possibility of my being the same with C——­ C——.  She overlooked the difference of constitution between the two sexes, and the privileges enjoyed by women.

Now that age has whitened my hair and deadened the ardour of my senses, my imagination does not take such a high flight, and I think differently.  I am conscious that my beautiful nun sinned against womanly reserve and modesty, the two most beautiful appanages of the fair sex, but if that unique, or at least rare, woman was guilty of an eccentricity which I then thought a virtue, she was at all events exempt from that fearful venom called jealousy—­an unhappy passion which devours the miserable being who is labouring under it, and destroys the love that gave it birth.