"How knew you that?—did I ever say so? Nay, I never even allowed such an idea to enter my mind."
"You repented having surrendered your liberty; my intention was to restore it to you."
"Have you, then, no notion of the difference between good and evil?"
"Oh! yes. Good is that which renders you happy. Evil whatever makes you wretched."
"Merciful Heavens! who would ever have believed such wild and savage enthusiasm could be found in our days and in a civilised country? And your hand trembled not? and you could calmly and coolly premeditate a crime as black as that of murder? and, still more, how could you renew your diabolical attacks undismayed by former failures?"
"After my first attempt, your melancholy became greater than ever. You frequently complained to me of what you had to endure from the inequality of the prince's temper, and many a time have I heard you curse the hour in which you were induced to consent to your ill-assorted marriage; and then, when most under the influence of gloom and depression of spirits, you have wept bitterly, and called upon death to free you from your misery. This was more than I could bear, and a second time I determined to effect the death of him who occasioned your sufferings. I planned my attack one night that we passed at a lone inn, and I contrived to gain admittance into the chamber of my intended victim by climbing up to the balcony belonging to his sleeping-apartment, the window of which opened into it, but had been left partly open to admit the air; this window I managed to close after me as I made my retreat after this second failure."
"Impossible that one so young could act with so much cold-blooded hardihood! I cannot, I will not believe the evidence of my own senses!"
"Alas! could you but comprehend how my heart sympathises with your most trifling sorrow; how each tear wrung from your eyes seems to fall like molten lead upon my brain; you would be able to understand the cold-blooded hardihood with which you reproach me! Ah! did you only know what a burden life has seemed to me since I discovered how valueless and unimportant I was to you, you could far better enter into my eager desire to secure your happiness, even at the risk of my own life, which was hateful and distasteful to me; and that I made no further attempts to achieve my design was attributable to the increased precautions adopted by the prince to secure his safety."
"Enough, enough; you fill me with horror! and now, what am I to do?—you have confessed your crime——"
"It matters little to me what is done now."