"But she—that girl, did!"
"How could she have believed?"
"Ah, grand! I reverence your faith. But she is a woman! She loved you and expected you that hour, I say. Thus comes the shock of finding you untrue, of finding you at least a common man, after all. She is a woman. 'Tis the same fight, all the centuries, after all! Well, I did that."
"You ruined the lives of two, neither of whom had ever harmed you, Madam."
"What is it to the tree which consumes another tree—the flower which devours its neighbor? Was it not life?"
"You had never seen Elisabeth."
"Not until the next morning, no. Then I thought still on what you had said. I envied her—I say, I coveted the happiness of you both. What had the world ever given me? What had I done—what had I been—what could I ever be? Your messenger came back with the slipper. The note was in the shoe untouched. Your messenger had not found it, either. See, I did mean it for you alone. But now since sudden thought came to me. I tucked it back and sent your drunken friend away with it for her—where I knew it would be found! I did not know what would be the result. I was only desperate over what life had done to me. I wanted to get out—out into a wider and brighter world."
"Ah, Madam, and was so mean a key as this to open that world for you? Now we all three wander, outside that world."
"No, it opened no new world for me," she said. "I was not meant for that. But at least, I only acted as I have been treated all my life. I knew no better then."
"I had not thought any one capable of that," said I.