"My child, you are doing wrong. There is a secret between you already. That is a bad basis to begin life upon, and the love that is raised on it will be a house built on the sand."
Her heart was beating violently, but she turned on him with a burning glance.
"What do you mean?" she said, while the colour increased in her cheeks and forehead. "I am a good woman. You know I am."
"To me, yes! The best woman in the world."
She had risen to her feet, and was standing by the chimney-piece.
"Understand me, my child," he said affectionately. "When I say you are doing wrong, it is only in keeping a secret from the man you intend to marry. Between you and me ... there is no secret."
She looked at him with haggard eyes.
"For me you are everything that is sweet and good, but for another who knows? When a man is about to marry a woman, there is one thing he can never forgive. Need I say what that is?"
The glow that had suffused her face changed to the pallor of marble, and she turned to the Baron and stood over him with the majesty of a statue.
"Is it you that tell me this?" she said. "You—you? Can a woman never be allowed to forget? Must the fault of another follow her all her life? Oh, it is cruel! It is merciless.... But no matter!" she said in another voice; and turning away from him she added, as if speaking to herself: "He believes everything I tell him. Why should I trouble?"