Tell me, can you condemn me now that you know all ?" "It is not for me to judge you," said Wilhelm sadly.

"All I think is that you have had a great deal of misfortune in your life." "Yes, have I not ?" cried the countess eagerly.
"Do not misunderstand me.

You had the misfortune to make a mistake in thinking you loved Count Pozaldez." "How should a sixteen-year-old child know?
The first passably good-looking, well-bred man who flatters her wins her heart." "That is only too true.

But if a young girl throws away her heart so lightly, she has no right to complain if she has to repent of it for the rest of her life." "But that is a terrible theory!" exclaimed the countess, and dropped his hand "What?
One wakes to a knowledge of the world and of life--one is wretched, one sees that there is such a thing as happiness, and how it may be obtained, and one is not to stretch out a hand to grasp it?
You would really be so cruel as to say to a woman--young, and in need of love--in childish ignorance and folly you were guilty of a mistake, all is over for you, abandon all claims to love and hope, sunshine and life, pass your years in mourning, and bury yourself alive, you have no further right to share in the joys of life ?" Wilhelm left her string of passionate questions unanswered, and continued the thread of his former discourse: "But most certainly an older and more sensible woman, who should have learned wisdom from a first error, has no right to be guilty of a second one." "Oh, how hard you are!" murmured the countess.
"What would you have ?" said Wilhelm.

Then with a sudden inspiration: "A woman has every right to love; but then you have loved--twice." "No, no, not even once.