Mezzoni the Brigand — page 108: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

100 MEZZONI THE BRIGAND. this was but a stepping-stone to her purpose. It was a means, not an end. She sat down and wrote as follows: ‘‘ALBERTO:—You know that the count is dead. I never loved him, it was the usual marriage of con- venience, the curse and necessity of our station in life. The memory of our early association has only slumbered in my heart, it has never been obliter- ated. Iam free now! I know how generously, how nobly you protected my name in that matter which caused the duel. “Tf, as I freely told you, I loved you before, how much more dearly must I regard you after such self- sacrifice in my behalf. Laying aside the cold con- ventionalities of society, why may I not tell you all this, as | should do if I were a man and you were a woman? You are reported to be wealthy by some, others think your fortune quite limited. I have enough for both. : ‘‘Did you dismiss me so coldly, actuated by a sense of honor toward your friend, the late Count Amadeo? I know that no sense of fear could move you. All seemed lost to me then—now fortune seems to have once more opened to me the possible gates of happiness. Does disappointment again await me? ‘“Write to me if only one line.”’ There was no need of a signature to this missive. The letter burning with the mad love of the writer told its own story. She read it over before she sealed and addressed it, while her cheeks bore evi- dence, in a blush, that all sense of delicacy had not yet entirely departed. “Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad,’’ she said, quoting the classic axiom. “Am I mad? Is it really I who am doing this thing? Has all sense of modesty departed from me? Be that as it may, it is too late to turn back. I can