"I was jealous of your work.

I took my revenge by taking a lover, but I loved you, you only, all the time, and lost you-- I thought you gave Your heart and soul away from me to slave At statecraft.

Since my right in you seemed lost, I stung myself to teach you, to your cost, What you rejected could be prized beyond Life, heaven, by the first fool I threw a fond Look on, a fatal word to.
"Ah, is that true, you loved and still love?
Then contempt perishes, and hate takes its place.

Write your confession, and die by my hand.
Vengeance is foreign to contempt, you have risen to the level at which hate can act.

I pardon you, for as I slay hate departs--and now, sir," and he turns to the monk-- She sleeps, as erst Beloved, in this your church: ay, yours! and drives the poisoned dagger through the grate of the confessional into the heart of her lover.
This is Browning's closest study of hate, contempt, and revenge.