And often a woman, knowing this, and calculating mostly falsely, is urged to yield by a desire of proving that she does not deserve such a suspicion.

But Ludovico had no such thought in his mind.
He knew that Paolina had not only spoken truly, but had represented her mind accurately.

It was not that she "respected herself." The poor child had never received any lessons which could teach her such respect.

She had been perfectly ready to accept the social position of Ludovico's mistress, until the power of a great, true, and pure love had unsealed the eyes of her understanding, of her imagination, and of her heart to the nature--not of the social position of such a tie as that proposed to her--but of the absolute imperious necessity of sharing such a love with none.

Putting all notion of principle, of duty, of the understood expediency of conforming to laws divine, and human, out of the question, such a love as Paolina felt demands this with a cogency of insistence that cannot be set aside.