First Part Chapter 22

In all other matters, duplicity, faithlessness, and broken pledges are
brought to book and punished; but not so with love, which is at once
the victim, the accuser, the counsel, judge, and executioner. The
cruelest treachery, the most heartless crimes, are those which remain
for ever concealed, with two hearts alone for witness. How indeed
should the victim proclaim them without injury to herself? Love,
therefore, has its own code, its own penal system, with which the
world has no concern.

Now, for my part, I have resolved never to pardon a serious
misdemeanor, and in love, pray, what is not serious? Yesterday you had
all the air of a man successful in his suit. You would be wrong to
doubt it; and yet, if this assurance robbed you of the charming
simplicity which sprang from uncertainty, I should blame you severely.
I would have you neither bashful nor self-complacent; I would not have
you in terror of losing my affection--that would be an insult--but
neither would I have you wear your love lightly as a thing of course.

Never should your heart be freer than mine. If you know nothing of the
torture that a single stab of doubt brings to the soul, tremble lest I
give you a lesson! In a single glance I confided my heart to you, and you read the
meaning. The purest feelings that ever took root in a young girl's
breast are yours. The thought and meditation of which I have told you
served only to enrich the mind; but if ever the wounded heart turns to
the brain for counsel, be sure the young girl would show some kinship
with the demon of knowledge and of daring.