When she came to me, I was beyond shock. I was weary. Weary of the world, and weary of clinging to dreams that dripped with impossibility. My descent into darkness accelerated with each lonely hour. I was too absorbed in self pity to realize that there were other people involved other than myself. That was a mistake.

I let her weep. I listened as she related her entire sordid story to me...how she had harbored a childish infatuation for "le vicomte" for years, how his sudden prominence in the affairs of the Opera Populaire complicated her life to the point of insanity...how this innocent infatuation became more and more overwhelming...and how, after downing more champagne than she'd ever tasted in her life, she gave herself over to a night of unspeakable passion that led her to me. She was with child. And she came to me, of all people, to apologize.

To even speak of the vicomte in my presence was tactless. She knew perfectly well that he had singlehandedly killed me, and took my life with him.

I watched the tears stream down her near-porcelain cheeks. She continued to wail about how bearing an illegitimate child would disgrace her dead father. Any hope she had of a career at the Opera was gone. I did not say a word. She had forgotten about how much this was hurting me.

I was beyond allowing the paths I had not chosen along the road of life to push me into hopeless regret. Love is the wickedest form of deception. Love clouds the mind with the promise of a better tomorrow. Love forces the body to disobey the mind. Love equals destruction. In a perverse way, I was glad that she, too, had learned this most important of lessons.

But I felt her ache in a way no other could.

For, you see, if it had been mere months earlier, I would have been in her place.

*To be continued*