"Speak on, then, my dear child, but don't exhaust yourself."
"Mother, though I have failed, through very shame of broken promises, to write to you lately, yet you must have heard from other sources of my father's tragic death?"
"I heard of it, my child. And I have daily remembered his soul in my prayers."
"And you heard, good mother, of how I forgot all my promises to devote myself to a religious life, and how I betrothed myself to the Marquis of Arondelle, who is now the Duke of Hereward?"
"You yielded to the expressed wishes of your father, my child, as it was natural you should do."
"I yielded to the inordinate and sinful affections of my own heart, and I have been punished for it."
"My poor child!"
"Listen, mother! Yesterday morning, at St. George's church, Hanover Square, in London, I was married by the Bishop of London to the Duke of Hereward. Yesterday afternoon I received secret but unquestionable proof that the duke was an already married man when he met me first, and that his wife was living in London!"
"Holy saints, Mademoiselle! What is this that you are telling me?" exclaimed the astonished abbess. "Surely, surely she is growing delirious with fever," she muttered to herself.
"I am telling you a terrible truth, my mother! Listen, and I will tell you everything, even as I know it myself!" said Salome, earnestly.