Now read the truth. I understand all now. I am no longer the
thoughtless, believing girl whom you drew from her simple life to
give her so cruel a fate. Yesterday I was a child, to-day----Oh,
above all else, do you think I can ever forgive you for having
killed the faith, the joy of life that was in me! You have spoiled
for me for ever my rightful share of the joyous and the good. My
heart is sixty though my body is not twenty. How dared you rob me
of all that was my birthright, of all that was my life, and give me
nothing--nothing in return!

Do you remember how I begged you not to make me marry you; but you
urged me, and because I loved you and trusted you, I did? how I
entreated you not to make me marry you secretly, but you insisted,
and loving you, I did? how you promised you would leave me at the
altar and not see me till you came again to claim me openly for your
wife, and you broke that sacred promise? Do you remember--my
husband!

Do you remember that night in the garden when the wind came moaning
up from the sea? Do you remember how you took me in your arms, and
even while I listened to your tender and assuring words, in that
moment--ah, the hurt and the wrong and the shame of it! Afterwards
in the strange confusion, in my blind helplessness I tried to say,
"But he loved me," and I tried to forgive you. Perhaps in time I
might have made myself believe I did; for then I did not know you as
you are--and were; but understanding all now I feel that in that
hour I really ceased to love you; and when at last I knew you had
denied me, love was buried for ever.