"And now, as to your friend. Comfort her. The poor girl is no more

guilty than if a traction engine had run over her or a wild beast

had broken on her out of his cage. She must not torture herself

any longer. It is not right, it is not good. Our body is not the

only part of use that is subject to diseases, and you must save

her from a disease of the soul.

"As to whether she should tell her husband, I can have but one

opinion. I say, Yes, by all means. In the court of conscience the

sin, where it exists, is not wholly or mainly in the act. That has

been pardoned in secret as well as in public. God pardoned it in

David. Christ pardoned it in the woman of Jerusalem. But the

concealment, the lying and duplicity, these cannot be pardoned

until they have been confessed.

"Another point, which your pure mind, dearest, has never thought

of. There is the other man. Think of the power he holds over your

friend. If he still wishes to possess her in spite of herself, he

may intimidate her, he may threaten to reveal all to her husband.

This would make her miserable, and perhaps in the long run, her

will being broken, it might even make her yield. Or the man may

really tell her husband in order to insult and outrage both of

them. If he does so, where is she? Is her husband to believe her

story then?

"To meet these dangers let her speak out now. Let her trust her

husband's love and tell him everything. If he is a man he will

think, 'Only her purity has prompted her to tell me,' and he will

love her more than ever. Some momentary spasm he may feel. Every

man wishes to believe that the flower he plucks is flawless. But

his higher nature will conquer his vanity and he will say, 'She

loves me, I love her, she is innocent, and if any blow is to be

struck at her it must go through me.'

"My love to you, dearest. Your friend must be a true woman, and it

was very sweet of you to be so tender with her. It was noble of

you to be severe with her too, and to make her go through

purgatorial fires. That is what good women always do with the

injured of their own sex. It is a kind of pledge and badge of

their purity, and it is a safeguard and shield, whatever the

unthinking may say. I love you for your severity to the poor

soiled dove, my dear one, just as much as I love you for your

tenderness. It shows me how rightly I judged the moral elevation

of your soul, your impeccability, your spirit of fire and heart of

gold. Until we meet again, my darling, D. R."




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