Fiction > Book editions > London, 1885 - Prince Otto

224 PRINCE OTTG
forgive you is not needful : at least, we are now
separate for ever ; by your own act, you free me
from my willing bondage : I go free to prison.
This is the last that you will hear of me in love or
anger. I have gone out of your life ; you may
breathe easy ; you have now rid yourself of
the husband who allowed you to desert him, of
the Prince who gave you his rights, and of the
married lover Avho made it his pride to defend
you in your absence. How you have requited
him, your own heart more loudly tells you than
my words. There is a day coming when your
vain dreams will roll away like clouds, and you
will find yourself alone. Then you will remem-
ber ' Otto.'
She read with a great horror on her mind ;
that day, of which lie wrote, was come. She
was alone ; she had been false, slie had been
cruel ; remorse rolled in upon her ; and then
with a more piercing note, vanity bounded on
the stage of consciousness. She a dupe ! she
helpless ! she to have betrayed herself in seeking
to betray her husband ! she to have lived these
years upon flattery, grossly swallowing the bolus,
like a cIoavu with sliarpers ! she — Seraphina !
Her SAvift mind drank the consequences ; she
foresaw the coming fall, her public shame ; she
saw the odium, disgrace, and folly of her story