The Countess had begged to be left alone; alone, she found the solitude she had craved a cruel gift.

She had saved the packet.

She had fulfilled her trust.

But only to experience, the moment the deed was done, the full poignancy of remorse.

Before the act, while the choice had lain with her, the betrayal of her husband had loomed large; now she saw that to treat him as she had treated him was the true betrayal, and that even for his own sake, and to save him from a fearful sin, it had become her to destroy the letters.
Now, it was no longer her duty to him which loomed large, but her duty to the innocent, to the victims of the massacre which she might have stayed, to the people of her faith whom she had abandoned, to the women and children whose death-warrant she had preserved.