"How to blame?"

"I overrated my power over your heart: I overrated still more, perhaps,
my power over my own."

"Ah, your own! I understand now. You did not love me?"

"I never said that I loved you in the sense in which you use the word.
I told you that the love which you have described in your verse, and
which," she added, falteringly, with heightened colour and with hands
tightly clasped, "I have conceived possible in my dreams, it was not mine
to give. You declared you were satisfied with such affection as I could
bestow. Hush! let me go on. You said that affection would increase,
would become love, in proportion as I knew you more. It has not done so.
Nay, it passed away; even before this time of trial and of grief, I
became aware how different from the love you professed was the neglect
which needs no excuse, for it did not pain me."

"You are cruel indeed, Mademoiselle."

"No, indeed, I am kind. I wish you to feel no pang at our parting.
Truly I had resolved, when the siege terminated, and the time to speak
frankly of our engagement came, to tell you that I shrank from the
thought of a union between us; and that it was for the happiness of both
that our promises should be mutually cancelled. The moment has come
sooner than I thought. Even had I loved you, Gustave, as deeply as--as
well as the beings of Romance love, I would not dare to wed one who calls
upon mortals to deny God, demolish His altars, treat His worship as a
crime. No; I would sooner die of a broken heart, that I might the sooner