"He is overwhelmed with debt, and if I liked to call upon him to give me
back my dowry he would not have a shirt to his back. Why did he marry me?
He must have known his impotence. It was a dreadful thing to do."

"Yes, but you must forgive him for it."

She had cause for complaint, for marriage without enjoyment is a thorn
without roses. She was passionate, but her principles were stronger than
her passions, or else she would have sought for what she wanted
elsewhere. My impotent brother excused himself by saying that he loved
her so well that he thought cohabitation with her would restore the
missing faculty; he deceived himself and her at the same time. In time
she died, and he married another woman with the same idea, but this time
passion was stronger than virtue, and his new wife drove him away from
Paris. I shall say more of him in twenty years time.

At six o'clock the next morning the abbe went off in the diligence, and I
did not see him for six years. I spent the day with Madame d'Urfe, and I
agreed, outwardly, that young d'Aranda should return to Paris as a
postillion. I fixed our departure for the day after next.

The following day, after dining with Madame d'Urfe who continued to revel
in the joys of her regeneration, I paid a visit to the Corticelli in her
asylum. I found her sad and suffering, but content, and well pleased with
the gentleness of the surgeon and his wife, who told me they would effect
a radical cure. I gave her twelve louis, promising to send her twelve
more as soon as I had received a letter from her written at Bologna. She
promised she would write to me, but the poor unfortunate was never able
to keep her word, for she succumbed to the treatment, as the old surgeon