“I have never had such a piece of shame cast on me, but I laid it all in the hands of God, and said, ‘Thy will be done.’

“Whilst I heard mass my mind was made up, and as long as you love me I shall be yours, and yours only.  When you leave Spain and abandon me to despair, I shall find another confessor.  My conscience holds me guiltless; this is my comfort.  My cousin, whom I have told all, is astonished, but then she is not very clever.”

After this declaration, which put me quite at my ease, and would have relieved me of any scruples if I had had them, I took her to my bed.  In the morning, she left me tired out, but more in love with her than ever.