From a rare jewel to a common flower she never refused anything--her strongest passions were vanity and avarice.

Sparkling gems from the pilfered store of Carmelo Neri-trinkets which I had especially designed for her--lace, rich embroideries, bouquets of hot-house blossoms, gilded boxes of costly sweets--nothing came amiss to her--she accepted all with a certain covetous glee which she was at no pains to hide from me--nay, she made it rather evident that she expected such things as her right.
And after all, what did it matter to me--I thought--of what value was anything I possessed save to assist me in carrying out the punishment I had destined for her?
I studied her nature with critical coldness--I saw its inbred vice artfully concealed beneath the affectation of virtue--every day she sunk lower in my eyes, and I wondered vaguely how I could ever have loved so coarse and common a thing! Lovely she certainly was--lovely too are many of the wretched outcasts who sell themselves in the streets for gold, and who in spite of their criminal trade are less vile than such a woman as the one I had wedded.

Mere beauty of face and form can be bought as easily as one buys a flower--but the loyal heart, the pure soul, the lofty intelligence which can make of woman an angel--these are unpurchasable ware, and seldom fall to the lot of man.

For beauty, though so perishable, is a snare to us all--it maddens our blood in spite of ourselves--we men are made so.

How was it that I--even I, who now loathed the creature I had once loved--could not look upon her physical loveliness without a foolish thrill of passion awaking within me--passion that had something of the murderous in it--admiration that was almost brutal--feelings which I could not control though I despised myself for them while they lasted! There is a weak point in the strongest of us, and wicked women know well where we are most vulnerable.