'Seraphina,' the Prince wrote, 'I will write no syllable of
reproach. I have seen your order, and I go. What else is left me?
I have wasted my love, and have no more. To say that I forgive you
is not needful; at least, we are now separate for ever; by your own
act, you free me from my willing bondage: I go free to prison. This
is the last that you will hear of me in love or anger. I have gone
out of your life; you may breathe easy; you have now rid yourself of
the husband who allowed you to desert him, of the Prince who gave
you his rights, and of the married lover who made it his pride to
defend you in your absence. How you have requited him, your own
heart more loudly tells you than my words. There is a day coming
when your vain dreams will roll away like clouds, and you will find
yourself alone. Then you will remember
OTTO.'
She read with a great horror on her mind; that day, of which he
wrote, was come. She was alone; she had been false, she had been
cruel; remorse rolled in upon her; and then with a more piercing
note, vanity bounded on the stage of consciousness. She a dupe! she
helpless! she to have betrayed herself in seeking to betray her
husband! she to have lived these years upon flattery, grossly
swallowing the bolus, like a clown with sharpers! she - Seraphina!
Her swift mind drank the consequences; she foresaw the coming fall,
her public shame; she saw the odium, disgrace, and folly of her
story flaunt through Europe.
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