“A mistake! In coming to Carabanchel!” she exclaimed in an accent that conveyed that if that was a mistake, then so was the daily rising of the sun.
“Yes, a great mistake. But indeed I, who am regarded by a good many people as a man of sense, am always making mistakes in matters of conduct.” Pepa thought that possible. “My last blunder has given a pretext to scandal. My poor darling, do you know that they say in Madrid that within two months of your husband’s death you have encouraged a lover; that I am that lover; and that we are living in open defiance of all decency and morality. Not content with this they have chosen to invent a piece of retrospective slander, supporting it by what passes for substantial evidence.”
“And what is that?”
“Monina is said to be my child.”
For a minute Pepa stood bewildered; but the terrible charge had made no very deep impression on her mind. By a rapid and inexplicable process of logic she said:
“The calumny is so preposterous, so absurd, that we need not let it distress us.”
“Do you know of any shield against which the arrows of calumny are shattered?” said Leon. “There is but one and that is innocence. Our innocence, Pepa, is not immaculate. The slander that is directed against us is not without foundation; it is mistaken only as to the facts. It is false when it asserts that I am your favoured lover, but it is true when it says that I love you—it lies when it says that Monina is my child, but it is true—” Pepa did not let him finish the sentence.
“But it is true that you love her as if she were!” she exclaimed with joyous haste.
“Calumny may be wrong as to the facts, but failing facts she has intentions, desires, hopes to go upon. Answer me, can you say that we are innocent?”
“No. I, at any rate, am not. The scandal that has dragged my name in the mud is a just punishment,” said Pepa sadly. “And if I think of it with less horror than I ought to feel, it is because there is so much, so very much to excuse part—most—the foundation of the report. You are upright, honest, steadfast—I am not. I have allowed myself to cherish feelings in my heart in opposition to my duty; I am a wicked woman, Leon; I do not deserve your love; I am guilty, and I cannot feel that delicate horror of calumny you feel.”