Since we are decided--since it is to be the end--let it be now, quickly! You shall not have it on your mind that you belong to me in any way, from now.

No--you are right--you must feel free.

You must feel free, besides really being free.

You must feel, when you speak to Veronica to-night or to-morrow, as she expects you to speak, that all our life together is utterly past and swept away, and that I only exist henceforth as a relative--as--as your wife's aunt, Bosio!" She laughed, half-bitterly, half-nervously, at the idea, and turning away her face she held out her hand to him.
He took it, and held it, pressing it between both his own.
"Do you mean this, Matilde ?" he asked in a low voice.
"Yes, I mean it," she answered, speaking away from him with averted face.
He could not see, but she was biting her lip till it almost bled.

In her own strange way she loved him with all her evil nature, and if she were breaking with him now, it was to save herself from something worse than death.