It is too late to tell you now." "Oh, not too late! From what you say they will tell me, I should think, perhaps, worse of you than you deserve.

What is this thing you hide?
What is this mystery?
Tell me, monsieur.

Tell me." Did ever woman more plainly tell a man she loved him, and that loving him she would find all excuses for him?
Was ever woman in better case to hear a confession from the man that loved her, and of whose love she was assured by every instinct that her sex possesses in such matters?
Those two questions leapt into my mind, and in resolving them I all but determined to speak even now in the eleventh hour.
And then--I know not how--a fresh barrier seemed to arise.

It was not merely a matter of telling her of the wager I was embarked upon; not merely a matter of telling her of the duplicity that I had practised, of the impostures by which I had gained admittance to her father's confidence and trust; not merely a matter of confessing that I was not Lesperon.

There would still be the necessity of saying who I was.