If at this important juncture I not only hid the truth from you, but
deliberately misled you, it was not from any lack of confidence in you,
or with the wish to be unfriendly. I beg you to believe this. The fact
that I cannot even now explain to you my reasons for acting thus makes
it all the more difficult to justify my conduct to you. Therefore you
must be contented to take my word for it. Joergen Malthe, I would gladly
confide in you, but it is impossible. Call it madness, or what you will,
but I cannot allow any human being to penetrate my inner life.

You will not have forgotten that September evening last year, when I
spoke to you for the first time about one of my friends who was going to
separate from her husband, and who, through my intervention, asked you
to draw the plan of a villa in which she might spend the rest of her
days in solitude? You entered so completely into this idea of a solitary
retreat that your plan was almost perfect. Every time we met last year
we talked about the "White Villa," as we called it, and it pleased us to
share this little secret together. Nor were you less interested in the
interior of the house; in making sketches for the furniture, and
arranging the decorations. You took a real delight in this task,
although you were annoyed that you had no personal knowledge of your
client. You remember that I said to you sometimes in joke: "Plan it as
though it were for me"; and I cannot forget what you replied one day: "I
hate the idea of a stranger living in the house which I planned with you
always in my mind."

Judge for yourself, Malthe, how painful it was to leave you in error.
But I could not speak out then, for I had to consider my husband. For
this reason I avoided meeting you during the summer; I found it
impossible to keep up the deception when we were face to face.