“You know⁠ ⁠… I have to tell you⁠ ⁠… I was not disinterested when I began to make love to you. I wanted to get into society; but later⁠ ⁠… how unimportant that became in comparison with you⁠—when I got to know you. You are not angry with me for that?”

She did not reply but merely touched his hand. He understood that this meant: “No, I am not angry.”

“You said⁠ ⁠…” He hesitated. It seemed too bold to say. “You said that you began to love me. I believe it⁠—but there is something that troubles you and checks your feeling. What is it?”

“Yes⁠—now or never!” thought she. “He is bound to know of it anyway. But now he will not forsake me. Ah, if he should, it would be terrible!” And she threw a loving glance at his tall, noble, powerful figure. She loved him now more than she had loved the Tsar, and apart from the Imperial dignity would not have preferred the Emperor to him.

“Listen! I cannot deceive you. I have to tell you. You ask what it is? It is that I have loved before.”