"I love you, Valeria," he said.

"In spite of all that has passed, as God is my witness, I love you more dearly than ever." So he spoke.

So he left me.
I must write the truth about myself, however strange it may appear.

I don't pretend to be able to analyze my own motives; I don't pretend even to guess how other women might have acted in my place.

It is true of me, that my husband's terrible warning--all the more terrible in its mystery and its vagueness--produced no deterrent effect on my mind: it only stimulated my resolution to discover what he was hiding from me.