And after all, what did it matter to me—­I thought—­of what value was anything I possessed save to assist me in carrying out the punishment I had destined for her?  I studied her nature with critical coldness—­I saw its inbred vice artfully concealed beneath the affectation of virtue—­every day she sunk lower in my eyes, and I wondered vaguely how I could ever have loved so coarse and common a thing!  Lovely she certainly was—­lovely too are many of the wretched outcasts who sell themselves in the streets for gold, and who in spite of their criminal trade are less vile than such a woman as the one I had wedded.  Mere beauty of face and form can be bought as easily as one buys a flower—­but the loyal heart, the pure soul, the lofty intelligence which can make of woman an angel—­these are unpurchasable ware, and seldom fall to the lot of man.  For beauty, though so perishable, is a snare to us all—­it maddens our blood in spite of ourselves—­we men are made so.  How was it that I—­even I, who now loathed the creature I had once loved—­could not look upon her physical loveliness without a foolish thrill of passion awaking within me—­passion that had something of the murderous in it—­ admiration that was almost brutal—­feelings which I could not control though I despised myself for them while they lasted!  There is a weak point in the strongest of us, and wicked women know well where we are most vulnerable.  One dainty pin-prick well-aimed—­and all the barriers of caution and reserve are broken down—­we are ready to fling away our souls for a smile or a kiss.  Surely at the last day when we are judged—­and may be condemned—­we can make our last excuse to the Creator in the word? of the first misguided man: 

“The woman whom thou gavest to be with me—­she tempted me, and I did eat!”

I lost no time that day in going to the Villa Romani.  I drove there in my carriage, taking with me the usual love-offering in the shape of a large gilded osier-basket full of white violets.  Their delicious odor reminded me of that May morning when Stella was born--and then quickly there flashed into my mind the words spoken by Guido Ferrari at the time.  How mysterious they had seemed to me then—­how clear their meaning now!  On arriving at the villa I found my fiance in her own boudoir, attired in morning deshabille, if a trailing robe of white cashmere trimmed with Mechlin lace and swan’s-down can be considered deshabille.  Her rich hair hung loosely on her shoulders, and she was seated in a velvet easy-chair before a small sparkling wood fire, reading.  Her attitude was one of luxurious ease and grace, but she sprung up as soon as her maid announced me, and came forward with her usual charming air of welcome, in which there was something imperial, as of a sovereign who receives a subject.  I presented the flowers I had brought, with a few words of studied and formal compliment, uttered for the benefit of the servant who lingered in the room—­then I added in a lower tone: