There are certain things my wife does not know. Thank God for that. When I finally got her in my secret - that Rebecca had not been drowned but died from my very hand instead, those were things I could keep from her without the threat of her suspecting me to have delivered a mere travesty of a confession. I guess her Manichean vision of the world counts for much. To her I was Rebecca's victim, not her tormentor. Why should it be otherwise? She envisions being a wife as a source of duties - not privilege.

Never would she have understood Rebecca's views - nor would have she been able to create them for herself. She is not quite the sort of argumentative young woman and would not question one word of what is said to her - which she anyhow regards as gospel truth. Never, even over the scenes we've had since we were married, has she stood for herself and fought me back. She's taken absolutely everything. She's simply devoted to me. She's in complete denial of my dark side. I sometimes wonder if I even look half like the man she's married. Is it me she loves or the quixotic vision she has of me?

At least, that's what I inspire to her. Love. And I do love her. She makes the world look so simple. And so I told her I hated Rebecca. It looked so simple. So easy. Why can things not be easy? Ease I've been craving ever since I was a child and my late first wife was never able to give it to me.

For things were far more complex.

I had not always hated Rebecca and I could not say if she ever truly hated me. I guess one could even say we loved each other at first. Or thought we did. I would never have thought of any reason to hate her then - but for that blasted afternoon on the heights of Monte Carlo. I will always remember it. Vividly. When they lay my body in cold earth, that memory shall still be living inside of my corpse.

I said to my second wife that Rebecca told me things I shall never repeat to a living soul.

What I did not say was that her confessions came as an answer to something I said. Something that sounds rather silly indeed now that I look back. Over half of my life is gone now, but back then I was a thirty-year-old chap, an aristocrat into the bargain. Proud, arrogant, full of ready-made thoughts. And full of contempt for one who would not fit in that tidy little world of mine. And so I never realised how despicable it might have sounded to her when I said:

'No man on the Earth could possibly be happier, luckier than I am. They will all envy me now for having married the most beautiful woman in creation. But that's precisely why I need you to swear again that you're only mine till death do us part.'

I was looking at the road, and so I could not see her. She remained quiet for a while. Then, I heard her saying: 'Is it me or yourself you put in doubt?'

And then she said no more. I remember her silence made me feel anxious. I realised the road ahead of us came to an end and so I pulled up by the edge of a 500 feet deep precipice. We were on the highest cliff overlooking the French Riviera landscape, that damn cliff I should always remember from that day on.

We got out of the car and walked to the edge of the precipice. I was stunned by the view and so was probably she for she had still not spoken. I looked at her. She was looking the opposite way so I could not see her face. Her long dark hair and her silk dress were blowing. She was a real vision. But her silence made me feel increasingly uncomfortable. I was not used to it. She would always have something to say, especially when it came to landscapes.

'Is anything the matter, my love? Why are you not saying anything?', I finally asked.

She turned to me and I did not know what to think. Her usually china-like complexion had turned a slight pink and her lips were slightly parted in an awkward smile.

'What is it?' I said.

'Nothing', she answered, but her voice gave her away. I felt my jaws tighten. There were things she was not willing to say. Things that she was trying to conceal. It was that the undertones of her voice in that moment that started our misery. Had it not been for them, I might have never learned about the very things I was better off not knowing. Had it not been for these undertones, we might have lived as husband and wife. We might even have been happy together.

'What is it?' I asked again, angrily this time.

'Good Lord, Max! How funny you can be sometimes…' she murmured. 'I wish you had not put me ill at ease, that's all' she went on.

'What the hell did I say?'

'That thing in the car, about me being only yours…' She sounded genuinely sad, which I then thoroughly chose to ignore.

'There is nothing much to be ill at ease about, then. Is it not the sort of thing men ask from their wives?'

Something about her face changed that instant. Her expression went darker, and there was a mixture of despair and loathing reflected in her eyes. For the first time I chose not speak a word. She looked at me in utter distress.

'Dear Max, those things I said in the church… they're nothing but the conventional sort of things a priest expects a bride to say… I never thought they could fool anyone.'

'What?'I barked, and my yell echoed in the cove below.

'Do you expect me to be the treasure he jealously keeps from the world? Max, I shall never be your possession. I thought you knew that. I thought the idea of freedom between us was as obvious for you as it is for me.'

'How perfectly silly', I said abruptly between my teeth. 'If you wanted freedom, then why did you marry me?'

'I married you because I wanted you to be my husband. Not my jailer. Why do you have to ask me for something that I cannot give you?'

A tremendous wrath suddenly got hold of me as I realised the sheets were still immaculate the morning after our wedding night, something I somehow took no notice of at the time. Presently I understood.

'Have been having lovers?' I was looking down at the precipice.

'What a silly question to ask, Max!' she said, her voice filled with exasperation. She paused for one second. 'How can you expect me not to have? '

'You're a disgrace! You're nothing but a filthy little cheat!'

How dare she treat the de Winter's name with such disrespect, I thought.

'And what are you, uh?' she bursted out, 'Were you expecting to be your own perfect undefiled bride? I should have put a chastity belt on and thrown the key way, shouldn't I, while as a bachelor you would go wenching as free as you please!

'Men have been seeking my favours ever since I turned sixteen. They turned at me when I was just twelve years old. And I should just have rejected them, do you say? Just like I should have rejected you, then?

'A cheat am I, uh? Me thinks that you just lack any sense of integrity!'

She was right. Of course she was. But I simply could not stand it. To this very day I've never been able to regard women as men's equals. Not that I consider them being physically or mentally inferior. I just can't think of them having equal rights with comfort. It was right for me to do certain things and expect them to be forbidden to women. And this was precisely what she was being rebellious to.

I kept looking down to the precipice, and vertigo got hold of me. The discovery I had made was pure agony and my head felt dizzy. The silver surface on the sea looked closer and closer… Much closer than it indeed was. The woman I had married was to be a source of torment… Despair and wrath were my masters in that moment.

She must have guessed what my feelings were and she told me that the men she had belonged to the past. 'There is no reason why I should let other men touch me if you can make me happy. And this is strictly up to you. That's why I can't swear I'll be eternally yours.'

She was challenging me. I didn't know how I felt about it. I was offended of course. But my feelings weren't plain at this point. There were other things. And then I realised I was still wanting her and that I did not hate her. And I started to laugh uncontrollably. She looked at me curiously. And she started laughing with me.

'All right, Max, I'll be the perfect wife...'