Had he said to her,--when her heart was softest towards him,--I once loved another woman, and that woman is here now in London, a trouble to me, persecuting me, and her history is so and so, and the history of my love for her was after this fashion, and the history of my declining love is after that fashion, and of this at any rate you may be sure, that this woman has never been near my heart from the first moment in which I saw you;--had he told it to her thus, there would not have been an opening for anger. 
If he had said to her, I once loved another woman, and that woman is here now in London, a trouble to me, persecuting me, and her history is so and so - you may be sure that she would not have been angry.
