I cannot refrain, dearly beloved, from commenting upon the profound melancholy you were in this morning, and upon the doubt you manifest on every occasion as to the sincerity of my love. This unjustifiable suspicion on your part disheartens me beyond all expression. It intimidates me and makes me fear to confide to you the incidents my dubious position exposes me to. To-day, for instance, I concealed from you the visit of a creditor, who presented himself to the porter, but was not shown up. I paid him out of my own resources, without your knowledge, because you are always telling me _I do not love you_. This expression from you makes me feel that you hold a shameful opinion of me and my character, rendered possible perhaps by my situation, but none the less false, unjust, and cruel.

I love you _because_ I love you, because it would be impossible for me not to love you. I love you without question, without calculation, without reason good or bad, faithfully, with all my heart and soul, and every faculty. Believe it, for it is true. If you cannot believe, I being at your side, I will make a drastic effort to force you to do so. I shall have the mournful satisfaction of sacrificing myself utterly to a distrust as absurd as it is unfounded.

Juliette Drouet's Love-Letters to Victor Hugo — Part 72

Meanwhile, I ask your pardon for the guilty thought that came to me this morning, and which may possibly recur, if you continue to see in my love only a mean-spirited compliance and an unworthy speculation. This letter is very lengthy, and very sad to write. I trust with all my soul, that I may never have to reiterate its sentiments.

Juliette Drouet's Love-Letters to Victor Hugo — Part 72

I love you. Indeed I love you. Believe in me.

Juliette Drouet's Love-Letters to Victor Hugo — Part 72

Here is a second letter. Forgive my epistolary extravagance. Honestly, I imagine you must soon tire, to put it as mildly as possible, of this superabundance of letters.

The reason of my writing again is no novel one: it is merely to repeat that I love you every day and every instant more and more; that I feel convinced you are only too eager to return my sentiments, but that between your desire and your capacity there stands a wall a hundred feet high, entitled "suspicion." Suspicion leads to contempt, and when that exists, no real love is possible. There is no answer to what I have just stated. I feel it, and am crushed by my sorrow. I know not what to do, where to go, what plans to make. I can only suffer, just as I can only love you.